The Psychedelic Roots of Mormonism?

Introduction
This is a thread to explore the possibility of a connection between the psychedelic experience and the early religion of Mormonism as it was in 19th century America in the days of its founder, Joseph Smith.

I am not a Mormon, and I mean no disrespect to anyone holding that belief system. I do, however, think it is an interesting line of inquiry. I would not say I necessarily believe the ideas presented below to be the truth, but I think they bear consideration.

The source for most of the contentions presented below is this link:
Mormon Visions…Did Joseph Smith Use Psychedelics to Facilitate Visionary Experiences?
This fascinating essay was the impetus behind this thread, so anyone interested in the topic is advised to check it out. Much of the logic behind the ideas presented below is drawn directly from the material at that thread, as are most of the images.


Other links of possible interest
Early Mormon Visions and Near Death Experiences
The First Vision of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith and the Kabbalah


Basic background info
Joseph Smith was born in 1805 in upstate New York. He came of age during a national surge in religious fervor known as the Second Great Awakening. Smith was a　mystically inclined youth who claimed supernatural abilities that he believed could help him find buried treasure. Later he claimed to have received a vision in which an angel showed him a book written on gold plates in a strange language he called “Reformed Egyptian.”

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Smith claims that with divine help he translated the book, to result in the text that was to become the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon tells tales of a world in which Israeli settlers sailed across the Atlantic to America at around 600 BC. The settlers allegedly founded different cultures and civilizations, and went through cycles of barbarism and civilization, war and peace, before losing their ancestral memories and becoming Native Americans around the time of the fall of Rome. Among the themes in the scripture are the centrality of Christ, repeated instances of divine guidance and divine revelation, the centrality of family, the centrality of tradition and scripture themselves, and an alternative history of North America. Even today, millions of Mormons accept this narrative as literally true, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Other idiosyncratic features of early Mormonism included polygamy (no longer endorsed by the mainline Mormon church), the belief that each man can become a kind of deity of his own world after death, the belief that some sins are too strong to be washed away by the blood of Christ and demand the “blood atonement” of the sinner himself, and the belief in ongoing personal revelation and prophecy, including in our own time.

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Above: Smith addresses the Nauvoo Legion, his private theocratic militia

Smith’s radical views earned him a number of followers but also bitter scorn, derision, and ostracism. He and his group moved west from New York in 1831, seeking to establish the city of Zion in Western Missouri. However, the locals didn’t take kindly to the newcomers, and they were expelled violently. In 1844, the group settled swampy Nauvoo, Illinois. Smith became quite powerful, ruling his growing flock as a supreme theocrat and running the large Nauvoo Legion, a militia of at least 2,500 troops (for comparison, there were only approximately 8,500 troops within the entire US Army in 1845). Eventually, after some turmoil over the destruction of a newspaper printer by some of Smith’s men, violence broke out again and Smith was killed in 1845 while awaiting trial. The Mormons left the area under the leadership of Brigham Young, eventually settling in Utah and establishing themselves as a major religion.


Mormons and Psychedelics?
The main building blocks in the case for Mormon use of entheogens are described below, based mostly on Mormon Visions, the source cited previously.

The Tenor of the Times
Early Mormonism, like other religious movements to flourish during and immediately after the Second Great Awakening, was strongly mystical in nature. Direct experience of the divine, of “miracles,” visions, and raptures, was the goal, rather than an intellectual or analytical approach to religion, as is more common with many of today’s fundamentalisms.

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Consider the following:

“…seeking for a personal visionary experience was primary. According to LDS scholar, Richard Bushman, early Mormon converts were “seekers” whose
… greatest hunger was for spiritual gifts like dreams, visions, tongues, miracles, and spiritual raptures.
(Bushman, R. L. (2005). Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 113, 147)
These early Church members sought direct experience with God and believed that Joseph Smith had the power to grant their desires. Confidence in their Prophet was not misplaced. Between 1830 and 1836, under the supervision of Joseph Smith, many early Mormon converts enjoyed heavenly visions and spiritual raptures. However, after Joseph’s death in 1844, the great visionary period of Church history came to an end.
Twenty years later, in 1864, members would ask Church leaders, “why it is that we do not see more angels, have more visions, that we do not see greater and more manifestations of power?”
More at source.

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Above: Joseph Smith preaching

As many reading this will be aware, mysticism and psychedelica have often been bedfellows (if uncomfortably) down through the ages. The mindset for a visionary, enthogenically mediated spiritual framework appeared to be in place. But if we have motive, do we have opportunity?


How could Joseph Smith have encountered psychedelics?

To begin with, it appears that psychoactive plants existed in the time and place in which Smith came of age:

“In 1998, Richard Evans Schultes, former director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University and the “father of ethnobotany” identified three culturally important entheogens available in the area Joseph lived and traveled: Datura plant, Amanita muscaria mushroom and peyote cactus.”
More at source.

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There has been speculation that Smith could have had concourse with an Algonquin Indian shaman as a young man. Those in his area were known to use the Datura plant and the Amanita Muscaria mushroom in their shamanic and religious rituals. Some aspects of Smith’s “visionary career” are very reminiscent of then-contemporary Algonquin religious and spiritual practices. The spiritually-curious young Smith would certainly have had the opportunity to come into contact with an Alogonquin shaman when growing up.

Another source of possible influence was “Black Pete,” an African American mentor of Smith who may have been a “root doctor,” with traditional knowledge of psychoactive plants. Consider the following:

As an early convert to Mormonism, Black Pete was described as "a chief man" who was "sometimes seized with strange vagaries and odd conceits." On at least one occasion Pete fancied he could "fly" and later recollections have him chasing "a ball that he said he saw flying in the air" or "revelations carried by a black angel." (Dialogue, Vol.12, No.2, p.24)
More at source.

Still another possible conduit for the psychedelic experience would have been Smith’s interest in European ceremonial magic and his association with Dr. Luman Walter, called a “possible alchemical mentor” to Smith who may have had knowledge of psychoactive plants.

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Above: The young Joseph Smith, having a visionary experience



Actual accusations of “something funny”

The source cited above has numerous examples of frenzied visions and first-hand quotations that are certainly eyebrow-raising when considered in light of hypothetical psychedelic use. I refer the reader thereto, and specifically to the section about “Kirtland House” and the portions immediately beforehand. A few examples:

Elder Charles L. Walker recorded that when the brethren had … partaken of the Lord's supper, namely a piece of bread as big as your double fist and half a pint of wine in the temple … the Holy Ghost descend upon the heads of those present like cloven tongues of fire. ("Diary of Charles L. Walker," 1855-1902, excerpts typed, 1969, p.35.)
Church member Elder Zebedee Coltrin testified:
In Kirtland Temple, I have seen the power of God as it was in the day of Pentecost! and cloven tongues as of fire have rested on the brethren and they have spoken with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. I saw the Lord high and lifted up and frequently throng the solemn assemblies, the angels of God rested on the temple, and we heard their voices singing heavenly music. At another time when consecrating some oil, we saw visibly the finger of God enter the mouth of the bottle. (Minutes of High Priest Meeting, Spanish Fork, Utah, February 5, 1870)
Following consumption of sacramental bread and wine on the afternoon of April 3rd 1836, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery retired to the pulpit where a series of visions were opened to them including the appearance of Jesus Christ, Moses, Elias and Elijah. (History of the Church 2:434-435. See also Notes and Comments, BYU Studies, vol. 15 (1974-1975), Number 4 - Summer 1975 551.) D&C 110.

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Above: Mormon artwork, “Kirtland Temple Spirit” (believed to be the title)

And then we come to actual accusations that the wine used as a sacrament in some early Mormon ceremonies was laced with something stronger:

Some witnesses of these events came to the conclusion that the sacrament had been laced with a drug. On January 6, 1831, a letter to the editor in the Palmyra Reflector accused Joseph Smith of legerdemain. (Palmyra Reflector, 6 Jan. 1831) Legerdemain means the practice of using “psychology, misdirection and natural choreography in accomplishing a magical effect.” In other words, Joseph Smith was being accused of using the sacrament as misdirection for the surreptitious administration of a visionary substance. In 1843, Henry Caswell wrote of “a pretended sacrament” associated with manifestations of power in early LDS meetings. (Henry Caswall, Prophet of the 19th Century, p. 63)
After witnessing several LDS sacrament meetings in Kirtland Ohio, Jesse Moss “became fully satisfied the wine was medicated” and one night attempted to steal a bottle but was caught. Immediately after his attempt was discovered, Moss made a public statement about how with drugged wine “angels could be manufactured & strange wonders made to appear in the night”. (J. J. Moss to James T. Cobb, Dec. 17, 1878)
A member of the Church by the last name of McWhithey was reportedly present during the 1836 Kirtland temple dedication week. Obviously disgruntled, McWhitney complained that the wine consumed was actually "mixed liquor” and that “the Mormon leaders intended to get the audience under [its] influence” so that visions experienced were believed to be of “the Lord's doings.” (Demming, Naked Truths (April, 1888), pp. 2-3. As found in Lamar Petersen, Hearts Made Glad, Salt Lake City Utah 1975, p. 135)
More at source.

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Mormon artwork, “A Christian Vision” (believed to be the title)

Other possibilities
How about Aminita muscara? This psychedelic mushroom was in the area and knowledge of it had been preserved in both Eurpoean esoterica and Native American shamanic traditions. Joseph Smith’s father had the ability to crystallize ginseng, demonstrating that he had the ability to work with psychoactive material, and several dreams he recorded are strongly reminiscient of Aminita Muscara experiences. (Scroll down to near the bottom for evidence, here.) Other possible congruencies between early Mormon doctrine and experiences and those related to enthogen use are noted at the same source.

So again, I would not by any stretch of the imagination say this evidence is conclusive, but it is an interesting line of speculation, IMHO.

reply to post by silent thunder

posted on 4/12/11 @ 01:22 AM

You see, this is why you shouldn't post good stuff in the middle of the night.


You obviously put a lot of hard work into this one and I hope it gets more attention now that I'm bumping it into the light of day.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Thanks for the positive feedback.

I suppose this line of inquiry might make both Mormons and psychedelic people uncomfortable, perhaps for different reasons, while remaining a matter of relative indifference for most others. But polemics aside, Joseph Smith was a fascinating figure, a true American character and a man in full.

I'll see if I can dig up something more solid along these lines. I know for a fact that cannabis use was an issue among early 20th century Mormons, prompting the church leadership to explicitly restrict its use before it was banned by the nation as a whole.

It's LDS - Not '___'

reply to post by silent thunder



Congratulations on an extremely interesting, intriguing opening post

As you would be aware, John Allegro wrote a book back in the early 70s, suggesting Christianity owes its beginnings to amanita muscaria. From memory, it was called ' The Mushroom and the Cross '

Nowadays, many are experimenting with '___' and experiencing what might be regarded as similar mystical visions and communications

In fact, many visionaries who went on to found religions (based on their visions) may have experienced something similar, be those experiences spontaneous or assisted by mould in bread or over-fermented liquors, etc.

Perhaps seemingly off-topic for a moment, but I'm reminded now of the testimony of Kelly Cahill of Australia. She and several others simultaneously witnessed and interacted with (reportedly) large dark entities which emerged from a UFO. They reportedly independently confirmed each other's experiences when questioned separately by investigators. But what struck me just now was what Kelly Cahill claims one of the entities said to her when she attempted to save herself and others using her newly gained faith in God -- God the Father

Kelly claims the entity mocked her and replied, ' Why would I hurt you -- I'm your father '

I suspect that if we ever become privy to the truth (and I'm not optimistic, sadly) we'll learn that we've been subject throughout to a cruel hoax which includes visions such as those claimed by Joseph Smith and other founders of religions and quite possibly the historical Jesus, Moses and all the patriarchs, as well as ' UFOs' and 'aliens', also ghosts and the entire zoo of paranormal entities and experiences, etc.

I suspect there's a big 'onion' out there and regardless of what substances we imbibe to free ourselves from what are regarded by many as false realities -- and regardless of whatever spontaneous visions and experiences we may have -- I suspect all we do is enter another layer of the same onion ... the Onion of Deception, lol (just invented it)

It's certainly possible that Smith utilized various psychedelic substances. Whether or not that could be proved at this point is another matter, with the Latter Day Saints being today as powerful and influential as they are. Just as people were outraged by Allegro's suggestion that Jesus and his diciples employed amanita muscaria, today's Latter Day Saints would (the majority at least)very likely take offence at the suggestion that Joseph Smith's visions were anything other than sent by God

I have my own suspicions about the Smith family's actual religion, which I won't go into here, but it's claimed (whether or not there's a basis in fact) that the entire Smith family were less than savoury. And it's been claimed they practised necrophilia during their sprit-raising activities. Smith himself claimed, if I'm not mistaken, to employ a 'peep stone' and that it was this which precipitated his visions which resulted in Mormonism

Of course, peep-stones have a long history in the British Isles, so by claiming he employed one, Smith may well have been tapping into something with which people were familiar in order to establish credibility

There's also the claim that Smith worked for an old couple as a handy-man and gained their confidence to the extent they revealed to him that the husband of the pair had written a book, the plot of which is said to have greatly resembled the visions Smith later claimed to have experienced. It's claimed that when Smith rose to some prominence, the couple recognised in his new religion much of what had been contained in the book, at which point they learned the book had been stolen prior to Smith's departure from their property. Death soon claimed the author and his wife, I think. How much of this is true, of course, who can say

Personally, I regard Smith and his family as carpet-baggers who'd be laughed out of the neighbourhood if they tried to pull the same stunt today. As you suggest, though, it's certainly possible that psychedelics were the true origin of Mormonism

Originally posted by CosmicCitizen
It's LDS - Not '___'

Very good

second line --- very good and thanks for the smile

Great Thread, I have one her eon ATS you might find of interest as well called Tryptamines and God.

At first, having experienced brugmansia/datura myself I had some doubts about this theory; however, after looking at some of the contemporary descriptions of how the flock behaved, I would say it is more than possible, it is likely.

Datura/brugmansia indeed does produce visions if taken in a high enough dose. When it is used in shamanic rituals there is a whole belief system that goes along with it. Novices are coached by their shaman as to what to expect and their visions match the program. In the case of the early Mormons, they also were coached to expect angels and biblical figures and apparently that is what they saw.

I took the stuff on my own without any coaching or expectations, and after the initial paralysis waned and I was able to move around, the rest of the day was filled with visions of my best friend. I had many conversations with him that day; but if I so much as diverted my glance he was gone. Of course he was never there, just the hallucinogenic version of him.

The descriptions of the way people acted seem appropriate or at least plausible for the possible use of datura. I can't speak for the other entheogens as they are out of my league.

Organized religion has become my favourite bugaboo lately. I appreciate threads like this that shed some light on the reality of this scary institution -- all versions of it as it isn't just the Mormon one, but all of them.