Posted on 10/24/2010 8:58:09 AM PDT by Colofornian
Although Smith didn’t say abracadabra, his mother admitted the family practiced this magic incantation:
Let not the reader suppose that...we stopped our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles, or soothsaying, to the neglect of all kinds of business. We never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation.
“Abrac,” is a Jewish Kabbalistic word. It comes from Abracadabra and Abraxis, a word placed upon amulets to work magic.
SNIP
The family’s involvement in witchcraft was confirmed by Fayette Lapham who, after visiting the Smiths, wrote:
[Joseph’s father] was a firm believer in witchcraft and other supernatural things; and...brought up his family in the same belief.
While one may view this as shocking, one needs to understand...his culture. Belief in magic was not unusual. Mormon Historian, B.H. Roberts, acknowledged that Smith’s family believed in “fortune telling...warlocks and witches,” and added that “to be credulous in such things was to be normal people.”
SNIP
Joseph learned to how to use “peep stones” from his father. Joseph Smith, Sr., placing them in a hat, would receive revelation on buried treasure locations. Known as a “money-digger,” he hired out to locate these caches. An affidavit by David Stafford confirmed that “the general employment of the Smith family was money digging and fortune telling.”
Joseph...followed in his father’s footsteps. Even long before he claimed to find the gold plates of the Book of Mormon...he was finding buried treasure and deciphering ancient writings...according to William R. Hein, he gazed into his stone, and:
He saw Captain Kidd sailing on the Susquehanna River... he buried...pots of gold and silver. He claimed he saw writing cut on the rocks in an unknown language telling where Kidd buried it...he translated it through his peep-stone.
(Excerpt) Read more at janishutchinson.com ...
The October Other-World Series:
Are ghosts among us? Many believe in spirits, but churches offer stern warnings
The "familiar spirit" in 2 Nephi 26:16
Current focus -- The Occult History of Joseph Smith: Home Field -- The early 1800s:
What kind of a home environment did Joseph Smith have?
JOSEPH SMITH, JR: Founder and first "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" (1805-1844)
If you dig deep enough, you will find questionable things about any religion or person. Keep it in perspective and don’t relate it to todays people.
This link in above graph is to the discussion of this article on FR.
GOD-MEN AND SPIRITUAL VEGETABLES: The Occult Worldview of Mormonism
and then?
seriously. who cares? seems like someone is trying to cause distraction for some reason
BTTT
bump
Those cultish Mormons shouldn’t have flown airplanes into buildings in New York and attacked the U.S.S. Cole.
Oh, wait...
- JP
I wanna reach out and grab ya.
Well, there was that mountain meadows massacre thingy ...
Ha! Seen you for years here and always thought you were sports nut from Utah (and maybe even had some Ute blood in ya). Just read your profile and realized you’re in WA! Ha!
While Captain Kidd sailed up the Delaware, perhaps he did so the Susquehanna R. as well. Albeit about 100 years before J. Smith's time.
You must understand the context. If someone makes grandiose claims, which Smith excelled in, and which foundationally made him and his church the only true Biblical one, damning all others which he did, and as having had personal communion with most every major notable from the Bible (even two Elijahs), then he himself invites scrutiny, and must not fail to live up to his claims, substantially at the least.
Yet Smith is easily and abundantly shown to be contrary to the Bible, and his “another testament” to be plagiarism and falsehood, while personally acting or promoting actions manifestly contrary to it, his occult origins and practices being one of them.
Why do you hate Mormons so much?
Why do you beat your wife so much? (just as relevant of a Q as you asked me)
Oh, wait...The original 9/11 terrorist act in this country occurred when Mormons massacred 140 children, moms & dads at point blank range (the Fancher at Mountain Meadows, Utah). Children as young as 7 yo twins.
The Mormon church and their leaders only coughed up one scapegoat for what dozens of men took part in. Even to this day, the Mormon church has covered up more than it's uncovered about this massacre...and owns the very land where it occurs...and still there's no proper National Memorial status for the site of this massacre.
See Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation
(Imagine if 9/11, 2001 in NY had been covered up to the same degree as 9/11, 1857 in Utah...and only one perpetrator openly identified...Imagine if Islam ex-communicated one of their imams for such an act...only to quickly re-instate him...which is what happened to the Mormon bishop in this slaughter)
Undecided readers,
If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There’s an anti-Mormon group of people here that spends a great deal of their time attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They post regurgitated propaganda on an almost daily basis.
They have a misguided obsession. You can witness many different tactics employed that you might find quite interesting. The straw man argument is a big favorite and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking quotes or other material. After the “quotation” the attacker will misrepresent what has been said or what was meant and then attack their own interpretation. You’ll likely see perfect examples of just this shortly after I post.
Sometimes they cruise the headlines of the day seeking any story that might be twisted into making the Church look bad. Anything will do, just watch the progression of posts following it and see what I mean.
After reading their posts, I invite you to seek the truth about whatever “issue” they seem to be “revealing” or “exposing”. I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the “ahah” moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. In actuality, there’s nothing new here. It’s all been addressed many times before.
Here’s a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. I have found that the vast majority of the “issues” brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ but here’s more:
http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/
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