Seer Stone (Latter Day Saints) - History

History

Some early-nineteenth-century Americans used seer stones in attempts to gain revelations from God or to find buried treasure. Beginning in the early 1820s, Joseph Smith was paid to act as a "seer" in attempts to locate lost items and find precious metals hidden in the earth. Smith's procedure was to place the stone in a white stovepipe hat, put his face over the hat to block the light, and then "see" the necessary information in the stone's reflections. Smith had at least two seer stones, including a white stone that he found in about 1819, and a chocolate-colored stone that he found in 1822, both of which he used for treasure hunting. His favored stone, chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg, was found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors. In 1827 Smith said he obtained the "Urim and Thummim" which was composed of two white stones, different from the previous two.

Other early Mormons valued seer stones, among whom were Jacob and David Whitmer, Philo Dibble, W. W. Phelps, and Elizabeth Ann Whitney. In 1830 Hiram Page, one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, claimed to have had a series of revelations through a black seer stone. After Smith announced that these revelations were of the devil, Page agreed to discard the stone which, according to a contemporary, was "Broke to powder and the writings Burnt." Apparently the apostasy of some early Mormon believers can be traced to Smith's move away from the use of seer stones. The Whitmer family, devoted to their importance, "later said their disenchantment with Mormonism began when Joseph Smith stopped using his seer stone as an instrument of revelation." In November 1837 the Kirtland high council disfellowshipped 11-year-old James Colin Brewster, his parents, and several associates for claiming that he had "the gift of seeing and looking through or into a stone." Nevertheless, some Mormons continued to believe in the power of seer stones even after the Mormon hierarchy experienced "a dramatic shift in attitudes toward folk magic" during the 1880s. Even Brigham Young endorsed their use. In 1855, he reminisced, "Joseph said there is a Stone for every person on Earth." At the first general conference after Smith's death, Young declared, "The president of the priests has a right to the Urim and Thummim, which gives revelation."