Some issues concerning the nature of the witnesses' experience:
Regarding the three:
Regarding the eight:
In the first five minutes of this Vogel lies, he says the three witnesses experiences was only spiritual and the church uses this in some way, I've been in the church 60 years and never heard anyone say they only had a spiritual experience. Truthfully I'm not going to sit and listen to this hour long video mainly because I can see how he is approaching this. It's a little play on word meaning, he redefines the meaning of 'spiritual' to mean in a vision which must have been a delusion, but that was not the intent of the Three Witnesses.
I don't know if Vogel uses this quote cause I'm not sitting through his video but here, as an example, is a quote from an anti Mormon article published in The
Painseville Telegraph on 15 March 1831
"Martin Harris, another chief of Mormon imposters, arrived here last Saturday from the bible
quarry in New-York. He immediately planted himself in the bar-room of the hotel, where he soon commenced reading and explaining the Mormon hoax, ..... He told all about the gold plates, Angels, Spirits, and Jo Smith.—He had seen and handled them all,
by the power of God!"
The trick is to take 'by the power of God' and say it was a vision thus an illusion. However Harris' intent is; By the power of God I handled those plates and they were very real.
This is from Fairmormon.org
David Whitmer helps clear up the “spiritual” vs. “natural” viewing of the plates. Responding to the interviewer who questioned Harris. Anthony Metcalf wrote:
In March 1887, I wrote a letter to David Whitmer, requesting him to explain to me the condition he was in when he saw the angel and the plates, from which the Book of Mormon is supposed to have been translated. In April, 1887, I received a letter from David Whitmer, dated on the second of that month, replying to my communication, from which I copy, verbatim, as follows:
‘In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it ‘being in vision.’ We read in the Scriptures, Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God, Daniel saw an angel in a vision, also in other places it states they saw an angel in the spirit. A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled at noon day, and there in a vision, or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon...."
When Peter, John and James were on the Mount of Transfiguration this happened
"While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."
In Rev 1 John writes;
" I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,...And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last..."
Did John really see the Savior or was it an illusion? Did he just imagine the Lord placed his hand on his head? There is this experience of the Holy Spirit coming upon a person but that does not mean they weren't seeing what is literally there.
Again from Fairmormon.org
"Elder Edward Stevenson reported in 1870:
On one occasion several of his old acquaintances made an effort to get him tipsy by treating him to some wine. When they thought he was in a good mood for talk they put the question very carefully to him, ‘Well, now, Martin, we want you to be frank and candid with us in regard to this story of your seeing an angel and the golden plates of the Book of Mormon that are so much talked about. We have always taken you to be an honest good farmer and neighbor of ours but could not believe that you did see an angel.
Now, Martin, do you really believe that you did see an angel, when you were awake?’ ‘No,’ said Martin, ‘I do not believe it.’ The crowd were delighted, but soon a different feeling prevailed, as Martin true to his trust, said, ‘Gentlemen, what I have said is true, from the fact that
my belief is swallowed up in knowledge; for I want to say to you that as the Lord lives I do know that I stood with the Prophet Joseph Smith in the presence of the angel, and it was the brightness of day.”
You can read many many more examples here;
www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Witnesses/Spiritual_or_literal#Question:_Did_the_three_witnesses.27s_experience_of_seeing_the_plates_and_the_angel_take_place_only_in_their_minds.3F
