[oremites]

I’m wondering if that’s where Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism got his idea of Pilgrim type people living on the moon.

FYI, the idea that Joseph Smith believed in moon people came from someone writing about it in the 1880's, 40 years after the fact. There are no contemporary accounts of Joseph teaching this, and nothing in his own writings about moon people.

[SkyDancer]

It’s not a question of him teaching it. I read accounts where he spoke of it well before his death.

[fishtank]

Can any of you all add to this?

Something is not adding up here, but my memory is bad in this.

[SkyDancer]

" "Nearly all the great discoveries of men in the last half century have, in one way or another, either directly or indirectly, contributed to prove Joseph Smith to be a Prophet.

As far back as 1837, I know that he said the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth, and that they lived to a greater age than we do - that they live generally to near the age of a 1000 years.

He described the men as averaging near six feet in height, and dressing quite uniformly in something near the Quaker style.

In my Patriarchal blessing, given by the father of Joseph the Prophet, in Kirtland, 1837, I was told that I should preach the gospel before I was 21 years of age; that I should preach the gospel to the inhabitants upon the islands of the sea, and - to the inhabitants of the moon, even the planet you can now behold with your eyes.

The first two promises have been fulfilled, and the latter may be verified.

From the verification of two promises we may reasonably expect the third to be fulfilled also."

(This is the exact (though not complete) text of an article in "The Young Woman's Journal", an LDS magazine of the 1890s. The article is dated "Feb 6, 1892". )

[SparkyBass]

President Brigham Young not only taught the moon was inhabited, but the SUN as well. In a sermon delivered in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, President Young made these unbelievable statements:

“Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon?...when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the ignorant of their fellows. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 271)