Free Republic

…the dead have always played a major role in the practice of Mormonism. Both Smith and many subsequent leaders in the Mormon Church were in regular contact with the spirit world…A sermon delivered by Elder Parley Pratt in 1853 (five years after the celebrated spiritist movement began in America) indicates early Mormon acceptance of Joseph Smith as a “divine” medium… …the Mormon church erects a false division between ‘godly’ and ‘satanic’ spirit contact. They allege that all Mormon contact with the dead is ‘godly’ practice. But biblically, there is no such division, nor can Mormonism justify one. There is no...

LDS History of the Church Vol. 4 (pp 571-81) includes an editorial Joseph Smith, Jr. submitted to the Times and Seasons newspaper. “Try the Spirits” was written in response to “occurrences that [had] transpired amongst” his congregation. In the article, Smith identifies a spiritual problem– that is, people wrongly believe God is behind every manifestation of power, but in fact the credit is very often due to an evil or deceiving spirit. He writes, “there always did… seem to be a lack of intelligence pertaining to this subject. Spirits of all kinds have been manifested, in every age, and almost...