Christian Platonism and Mormon Origins

[_Kishkumen]

Prior to skimming through your link, I'd never realized just how much Joseph Smith had in common with Aleister Crowley and it makes some sense of the fascination some apologists have with the black arts.

I suppose given my Mormon background and my interest in FARMS as an inquisitive teen, it's not surprising that I was also interested in the occult and to some degree, Satanism. If I can recall some of the titles, then maybe I can find them on archive.org. I recall that the authors of these works were secretive, and had names like "Aurial" rather than "Richard C. Johnson". I also recall that they weren't into bibliographies. Whereas Nibley cites any possible tangent to show you how much he knows, these writers gave away nothing because they're showing what they've mastered.

Magic is open source, it doesn't matter if you got it from a discarded book, your own experimenting, or from a neighbor who also just happens to be a druid. Probably, a master-apprentice model approximates the learning of magic, even if as a metaphor, better than a teacher-student relationship in context of a university. It resists reduction, and it's a bit of a contradiction I think to be so arrogant as to write a book on magic, presuming you are an accomplished magician.

Knowledge doesn't build on sources, but rather, is fragmented among sources, none of which own any of the knowledge they possess, and very possibly misunderstand what they do have.

This is very insightful, Dean Robbers. Yes, magic does provide a better model for the transmission of knowledge here than academic scholarship, which is more legalistic in its contours. Magic has a model of apprenticeship more like a trade, when the training is in person and more formal, and more experimental and hodgepodge, when it is formal and structured. Any combination will do because it must. So, yes, it can be very practical in nature.

Lucy Mack Smith said that she and her family “went <​at​> trying to win the faculty of Abrac drawing Magic circles or sooth saying.”

So this was a family affair, and we know it included book-learning, family discussions, observing others such as Luman Walter, and even consulting their dreams (versions of Joseph Sr. dreams show up in the Book of Mormon). The way they pursued the faculty of Abrac and how they settled religious questions were very similar. Joseph’s prophetic activities and methods highlight that overlap very well.

[_Philo Sofee]

The dissertation on page 15 says

the evidence strongly suggests that Smith used Plato’s Timaeus in translating a portion of Egyptian papyri into what is now chapter three of his Book of Abraham. This chapter has a number of passages that align very closely to Thomas Taylor’s translation of the Timaeus and Smith even used very similar language to Taylor’s Timaeus

This is fantastically interesting! Thanks again for pointing this source out Kish. It is going to be a game changer I predict. I love the idea he has presented so far that Smith was commanded to STUDY OTHER SOURCES as well as receive revelation, and hence we see him establish the School of the Prophets, and study as much as he could and talk to others who also were studying as much as they could. The old apologetic started by Nibley (B.H. Roberts?) of everything of a unique character Joseph Smith could not have known is being waylaid here. There may yet be much more Joseph Smith knew that apologists and ourselves are simply unaware of.

[_Philo Sofee]

OK, I've made it to chapter one. I am definitely going to enjoy this dissertation! I also have found several books now that I am going to have to purchase. Gonna blow my dough, yikes! What will the wife think?

I am impressed with the new assessments of Christian Platonism, and its ideas of continuity. I hadn't quite thought of it that way before. Looks like perhaps the apologists have to change their perspective on this. They are still married to Nibley's outlook I predict. I may have to re-read his materials to make sure of his views.

I LOVE detective thrillers like this!!! No wonder the search for King Arthur or the Holy Grail, and just who Merlin may have been, or the Historical Jesus are so interesting to me. No wonder I LOVED the detective works of Patai and Seaich on the Cherubim in the ancient Jewish temple, and the Mother Goddess engimas. No wonder I love Joseph Campbell's detective work about myths, and Mercea Eliade's stuff on just what was going on anciently? And I will admit, Nibley's book "The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri with its myriad of ancient legends and myths is still thrilling reading for me. His best book still, however, was "The Ancient State." His non apologetics were vastly more intriguing, or at least they are now to me.

[_Kishkumen]

This is fantastically interesting! Thanks again for pointing this source out Kish. It is going to be a game changer I predict. I love the idea he has presented so far that Smith was commanded to STUDY OTHER SOURCES as well as receive revelation, and hence we see him establish the School of the Prophets, and study as much as he could and talk to others who also were studying as much as they could. The old apologetic started by Nibley (B.H. Roberts?) of everything of a unique character Joseph Smith could not have known is being waylaid here. There may yet be much more Joseph Smith knew that apologists and ourselves are simply unaware of.

Yeah, that part about the Timaeus in the Book of Abraham chapter 3 really grabbed my attention too. Fleming could very well put to rest the unrealistic and inaccurate vision of Joseph Smith being spoon fed ideas directly by the Almighty.

[_Philo Sofee]

So I made it to chapter one, and now have gone back to the beginning and am re-reading again. The comparison with Joseph Smith, and his notion of truth and acquiring it, with that of Dr. Mosheim who was discussing Alexandrian Platonism caught my eye this time. Here it is in a short paragraph...

“Mormonism is truth, the First Fundamental principal of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men.” Joseph Smith, letter to Isaac Galland, March 22, 1839.

“Those real sages … who were sick of those arrogant and contentious sects,1 which required an invariable attachment to their particular systems. And, indeed, nothing could have a more engaging aspect than a set of men, who, abandoning all cavil and all prejudices in favour of any party, professed searching after the truth alone, were ready to adopt, from all the different systems and sects such tenets as they thought agreeable to it.” Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, discussing Alexandrian Platonism in the first centuries C.E. and its influence on Alexandrian Christianity, Ecclesiastical History, 1:138.

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“[If the] Presbyterians [have] any truth, embrace that. Baptist. Methodist &c. get all the good in the world, [and] come out a pure Mormon.” Joseph Smith, sermon, July 23, 1843.

“These sages were of opinion that true philosophy, the greatest and most salutary gift of God to mortals was scattered in various portions through all the different sects; and it was, consequently, the duty of every wise man, and more especially of every Christian doctor to gather it from the several corners where it lay dispersed.” Mosheim discussing early Alexandrian Christians including Clement of Alexandria, Ecclesiastical History, 1:139.

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“I cannot believe in any of the creeds of the different denominations, because they all have some things in them I cannot subscribe to though all of them have some thruth [sic]. but I want to come up into the presence of God & learn all things but the creeds set up stakes, & say hitherto shalt thou come, & no further.—which I cannot subscribe to.” Joseph Smith, sermon, October 15, 1843.

“They were to raise above all terrestrial things, by the towering efforts of holy contemplation, those souls whose origin was celestial and divine … that thus, in this life, they might enjoy communion with the Supreme Being, and ascend after death, active and unencumbered, to the universal Parent, to live in his presence for ever.” Mosheim, discussing Alexandrian Christian Platonist Ammonius Saccus and his Neoplatonic followers, Ecclesiastical History, 1:142.

This is a perfect example of Western thinking. It is the reliance on man for Godly truth. Mixing, matching, assembling, in order to come to God.

The East would simply shake its head. There is no rhyme or reason for all that work. What one must do, if the goal is to get to God, is look within, and without to the starry heaven, and the daily life of living in the immediate now. This was called Tao.

It is remarkable to contrast the West with the East, and Joseph Smith was most definitely a West sort of guy. In that he is not to be faulted, as he really had nothing else to go with. But we do. Today we are acquainted with the entire other half of humanity, the billions whom we have ignored, imagining only our view is the real one. So studying this is going to be utterly delightful as far as I am concerned.

[_Fence Sitter]

This is incredibly intriguing.

However, additional scholarship and further research now suggest that in his quest to restore lost truth and practices missing from the Bible and contemporary churches, Smith turned to Christian-Platonic texts and descriptions to restore “the fulness of the gospel.” Method: Each chapter looks at particular aspects of Smith’s thought during a certain period, places those ideas within the history of Christian Platonism, and then proposes possible sources of transmission of the ideas to Smith. In doing so, I am not attempting to rule out divine inspiration as a possibility, but determining whether God inspired Smith is beyond the scope of this dissertation. At the same time, this dissertation takes Joseph Smith claims to be sincere and seeks to contextualize them. When I propose possible sources for Smith’s ideas, I look at the degree of similarity between the text and Smith’s doctrine and the opportunities that Smith had for contact with that source. An important factor is the impetus Smith may have had in using a particular source. If a subject were a point of interest for Smith then Smith would have been motivated to learn more about that topic. Thus an easily accessible text with ideas very similar to Smith’s on subjects that interested him would be an important possible source for his ideas. Other clues include books that Smith owned and statements made by his close followers; all these are factored into the possible sources of Smith’s thoughts.

We have already mentioned Mosheim's History but there were a lot of other books available to or owned by Joseph that we know about especially from the Nauvoo period.

See The Complete Record of the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute

[_Philo Sofee]

I found what I was looking for, the comment by Bhodi Dharma in "The Records of the Transmission of the Lamp," wherein Dharma says "there is no need of disciplining oneself in things external. Only let a man always have a right view within his own mind, no desires, no external objects will ever defile him. This is the seeing into his Nature...."

The abrupt doctrine is understood that one can know the whole truth all at once, in an instant, the truth that transcends dualism in all its forms. There are no gradations and no continuous unfolding. It's all like just BLAM! There it is, within your own mind.

This is the Eastern way of billions of inhabitants which Joseph Smith simply did not realize was even in existence. There is literally no way for anyone to get the "fulness" of truth without the fulness of knowledge of all people. Since Smith was integrating all kinds of stuff in order to "restore" truth, this is an entire half which he never even grasped. Therefore, I propose there simply cannot possibly by any stretch of the imagination be a fulness as Smith wished. Now, a fulness in the West? Maybe maybe not, but a total fulness? Fundamentally impossible. Joseph Smith could no more present a fulness concerning righteousness and God and truth than a cup in the hand of a man can hold the entire contents of the Pacific Ocean.

But I'm not letting this dissuade me from studying this wonderful dissertation, I am simply noting in all future attempts to imagine Smith was on the right track with his revelations and studies, it could have been a right track, but it cannot feasibly be the fulness of anything, since it literally leaves out over half the earth's human knowledge and experience. Joseph Smith literally did not have a clue what he was talking about.

I found this in one of the coolest books I own, D. T. Suzuki, "Zen Buddhism, Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki," edited by William Barrett, Doubleday, Image edition, 1996: 75.

[_Kishkumen]

But I'm not letting this dissuade me from studying this wonderful dissertation, I am simply noting in all future attempts to imagine Smith was on the right track with his revelations and studies, it could have been a right track, but it cannot feasibly be the fulness of anything, since it literally leaves out over half the earth's human knowledge and experience. Joseph Smith literally did not have a clue what he was talking about.

Thank you for sharing that, Philo. Yes, there are strands of Eastern and mystical thought that see the truth as coming from within or through one's direct, internal connection with God. Of course, there are many kinds of Buddhism with many different emphases and beliefs. I would agree that it is good to be aware of all of these things. That said, I am with Alan Watts who notes that there is really no single right path in terms of how truth is arrived at. Some call the ultimate reality God, and some call it the cosmos. Some people look within; some look around them. Some take one path at one time in their life and then climb onto another when it is most appropriate for them to do so. Right now it sounds like you are looking within, and that is certainly a legitimate path.

[_Fence Sitter]

OK, I've made it to chapter one. I am definitely going to enjoy this dissertation! I also have found several books now that I am going to have to purchase. Gonna blow my dough, yikes! What will the wife think?

Same problem here Philo. I did find one that looked really interesting that is not that expensive.
Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Studies in Cultural History) by Job Butler.

You can get a paperback copy delivered for about $6.00.

Challenging the formidable tradition that places early New England Puritanism at the center of the American religious experience, Yale historian Jon Butler offers a new interpretation of three hundred years of religious and cultural development. Butler stresses the instability of religion in Europe where state churches battled dissenters, magic, and astonishingly low church participation. He charts the transfer of these difficulties to America, including the failure of Puritan religious models, and describes the surprising advance of religious commitment there between 1700 and 1865. Through the assertion of authority and coercion, a remarkable sacralization of the prerevolutionary countryside, advancing religious pluralism, the folklorization of magic, and an eclectic, syncretistic emphasis on supernatural interventionism, including miracles, America emerged after 1800 as an extraordinary spiritual hothouse that far eclipsed the Puritan achievement―even as secularism triumphed in Europe.
Awash in a Sea of Faith ranges from popular piety to magic, from anxious revolutionary war chaplains to the cool rationalism of James Madison, from divining rods and seer stones to Anglican and Unitarian elites, and from Virginia Anglican occultists and Presbyterians raised from the dead to Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Smith, and Abraham Lincoln. Butler deftly comes to terms with conventional themes such as Puritanism, witchcraft, religion and revolution, revivalism, millenarianism, and Mormonism. His elucidation of Christianity’s powerful role in shaping slavery and of a subsequent African spiritual “holocaust,” with its ironic result in African Christianization, is an especially fresh and incisive account.
Awash in a Sea of Faith reveals the proliferation of American religious expression―not its decline―and stresses the creative tensions between pulpit and pew across three hundred years of social maturation. Striking in its breadth and deeply rooted in primary sources, this seminal book recasts the landscape of American religious and cultural history.

There are a lot of references to Mormonism in it.

[_Fence Sitter]

I am about a 100 pages in and am struck by something. They type of contemporary evidence (contemporary to Joseph Smith's time that is) he is presenting and the manner in which he is presenting it is eerily similar to how apologist defend Joseph Smith by presenting parallels to ancient texts and practices they claim Joseph Smith could not of known about.

So we have an outside view claiming that Joseph Smith was influenced by all these texts and presenting evidence of how they are strikingly similar to what Joseph Smith produced. The only difference is the apologist claims Joseph Smith could not of known and Fleming is claiming he did, but the methodology is the same. What grounds can an apologist criticize Fleming that also don't criticize their own approach?