Joseph Smith was not a sorcerer. He did not conger up spirits, he prayed to God which is what we should all do. David was a murderer and an adulterer.
sorcerer
[ˈsôrs(ə)rər]
NOUN
- a person who claims or is believed to have magic powers; a wizard.
synonyms:
wizard · witch · (black) magician · warlock · diviner · occultist · voodooist · sorceress · enchanter · enchantress · necromancer · magus · medicine man ·
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"When Joseph Smith recalled his money-digging activities for his official history, he wrote only about searching for a lost mine in 1825 for Josiah Stowell. But contemporary records suggest that this had been one of the Smith family occupations in the Palmyra/Manchester area
since the early 1820s. For example, Joshua Stafford of Manchester recalled that he ‘became acquainted with the family of Joseph Smith, Sen. about the year 1819 or 20. They then were laboring people, in low circumstances. A short time after this, they
commenced digging for hidden treasures,…and told marvellous stories about ghosts, hob-goblins, caverns, and various other mysterious matters.’ Willard Chase, another friend of the family, similarly recalled, ‘I became acquainted with the Smith family…in the year 1820. At that time they were engaged in the
money digging business.’" (
Inventing Mormonism, Marquardt and Walters, p.64)
Lucy Smith wrote:
"A short time before the house was completed [1825], a man by the name of Josiah Stoal came from Chenango county, New York, with the view of getting Joseph to assist him in digging for a silver mine. He came for Joseph on account of having heard that he posssessed
certain means by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye." (
Biographical Sketches, Lucy Smith, pp.91-92, as quoted in
Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 1, p.309)
People of State of New York vs. Joseph Smith. Warrant issued upon oath of Peter G. Bridgman, who informed that one Joseph Smith of Bainbridge was a
disorderly person and an imposter. Prisoner brought into court March 20 (1826).
Prisoner examined. Says that he came from town of Palmyra, and had been at the house of Josiah Stowell in Bainbridge most of time since; had small part of time been employed in looking for mines, but the major part had been employed by said Stowell on his farm, and going to school; that he had
a certain stone, which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold-mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowell several times, and informed him where he could find those treasures, and Mr. Stowell had been engaged in digging for them; that
at Palmyra he pretended to tell, by looking at this stone, where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was, of various kinds; that he has occasionally been in the habit of looking through
this stone to find lost property for three years,
but of late had pretty much given it up on account its injuring his health, especially his eyes—made them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with this business.…
"Recent discoveries have confirmed the reality of the 1826 pre-trial examination of ‘Joseph Smith The Glass looker’ before Albert Neely, a justice of the peace." (
The Creation of the Book of Mormon, LaMar Petersen, Freethinker Press, 1998, pp. 29-32)
In 1971 Wesley P. Walters, a Presbyterian minister and researcher of Mormon history, went to New York to look for documentation of Smith’s 1826 hearing. In the damp, musty basement of the jail in Norwich, New York, Mr. Walters found the Chenango county documents for 1826. In these bundles of papers were two documents that related to Smith’s 1826 hearing. Mr. Walters explains:
"The discovery among the 1826 Chenango County bills of two bills from the officials who participated in the arrest and trial of Joseph Smith at South Bainbridge in 1826 now confirms this story beyond question. The bill of Justice Albert Neely carries this entry:
(click to enlarge)
same [i.e. The People]
vs.
Misdemeanor
Joseph Smith
The Glass Looker
March 20, 1826 To my fees in examination
of the above cause 2.68
"The phrase ‘Glass looker’ appearing on Mr. Neely’s bill is the precise terminology preferred by Joseph Smith himself to describe his crystal gazing occupation and is the same that Mr. Benton adopted five years later to speak of Smith’s use of a peep-stone or glass placed in a hat, which he employed when hired to hunt for hidden treasures. The bill of Constable Philip De Zeng gives further historical evidence and details concerning this trial, by listing:
(click to enlarge)
Serving Warrant on Joseph Smith & travel..........1.25
Subpoening 12 Witnesses & travel..........2.50 (3.50?)
Attendance with Prisoner two days & 1 night......1.75
Notifying two Justices..........................................1.
—
10 miles travel with Mittimus to take him............1.
—
"This new evidence corroborates and throws fresh light on two accounts of this 1826 trial published almost a hundred years ago but vigorously disputed by the Mormons since they first came into prominence. The first is an account of the trial by Dr. William D. Purple, an eye-witness to the proceedings and a personal friend of Justice Neely. The second is the official trial record itself, torn from
the Docket Book of Justice Neely and published in three independent printings. Not only do the newly-discovered bills substantiate these two accounts as authentic, they now make it impossible for Mormon scholars to dismiss the numerous affidavits testifying that young Smith prior to founding the Mormon faith had earned part of his livelihood using a peep-stone to hunt for buried treasures.
The peep-stone story can no longer be set aside as a
vicious story circulated by those who wished to persecute the budding Prophet, for this new evidence, dating four years before he founded his church, witnesses incontrovertibly to Joseph’s early ‘glass-looking’ activities." (
Joseph Smith’s Bainbridge, N.Y. Court Trials, by Wesley P. Walters, pp.129-131)