I once spent some time in the stacks of the BYU - Brigham Young University - Library (in my birth town of Provo, Utah, incidentally; or not so) researching original-source materials on the early days of the so-called ‘Mormon’ Church - more accurately, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or ‘LDS’ as it is also commonly known. I had been born into that church, and had had an on-again, off-again relationship with it over the years, first reading my way out of it, and then back in, and then out again, and then in again;1 and had finally come to a point where I just needed to know, dammit, what the hell was going on with that Church, and its history.2 What I came across there - mostly in the way of some advanced- degree theses - left me realizing that we members had not been told the whole story about our Church’s founding; and then, when I then went up to Salt Lake City and did some more researching there, I came across enough information to cause me to write a letter to the Church and submit my resignation. And, somewhat put off with ’the whole thing,’ continued my search in other parts of the vineyard. A search that has continued to this day.
But over the years, one fact that I had come across in my research into the story of the ‘Mormon’ Church niggled at the back of my mind. In a footnote here I have mentioned the presence of a large stone found in Central America, that has lent some credence to the ‘Mormon’ story, in the way of confirmation of the historical story in the Book of Mormon.3 Some people have put down the official story - about a cache of gold plates having been found in a hill in upstate New York, which Joseph Smith translated with the help of something called a Urim and Thummin, and which purportedly contained a summary of the story of two peoples who occupied the Central American area, having come originally from the biblical area in the eastern Mediterranean4 - by saying that there was a ‘romance’ at the time written by a man named Solomon Spalding that was ‘probably’ what Smith passed off as what he had been given to look at in the form of gold plates. In my research I actually haven’t come across evidence that what Spalding wrote was anything near the story that has come to us in the Book of Mormon; but there is some evidence that a man named Sidney Rigdon had come across something, or had written something, that was the basis for it, and that he colluded with Smith (who was a known ‘seer’ at the time; purporting to be able to ‘see’ things in a ‘peep stone’ that he kept hidden in a hat) in the development of the Church.5 However, a) that is all conjecture; and b) there is
the stone.
A facsimile of which was in the Archeology Department at BYU when I went there to do some research in their library stacks. There it stands. And yes, it is clearly a depiction of a bearded man, sitting facing a tree, with figures standing around, as if being told a story by the man...with..the..long...beard.
A bearded man, in Central America……
I just stored that factoid away in the back of my mind, and got on with my life, outwith the precincts of the Church. My ongoing search has taken me down some very intriguing highways and byways, in the realms of history, and ‘astrotheology,’ and other forms of ‘religious’ thought, and science. And I am glad for the pursuit, feel the better for having made it.
But then, at the end of the day, there’s that damn stone……6
P.S. Speaking of ‘the end of the day’. As we approach the end of our Day in the Sun as it has been, I want to say a word, first to the Christians, and then to the Muslims.
To the Christians:
There are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
And
To the Muslims:
God is great. But even more importantly, God is good. Get with the real program. Or go down with your false god, in the light of
the New Day
dawning
for all of humanity.
…When all will be revealed.
And I hope I will finally have my answer, to the conundrum about
the stone. :-)
—
footnotes:
1 Most recently to that time I had read my way back in upon coming across the story of a large stela/stone that had been found down in southern Mexico back in the late ‘30s and reported on by a team of Smithsonian Institution-National Geographic Society archeologists, after an expedition there, in 1943, which had carved in it a scene - including of an old long-bearded man sitting facing a tree, with some other (Near Eastern-turbaned) figures around (specifically 6 in number), and a stream/river running by at the base - that years later someone recognized as a ‘scene’ - the ‘Lehi tree-of-life-story’ - from the Book of Mormon. Whoah! Curious, that. Planted there, by some true believer? Hard to believe. But worth looking into further…
At this point in this narrative I will mention that the key factor that had kept me looking into the Church as a source of Truth was the purported reference by its founder, Joseph Smith, to the concept of ‘free moral agency’ - that “There must needs be opposition in all things” - i.e., free will; choice. That sentiment - that concept; indicating that we are on a soul’s journey, and the choices we make determine our progress, ultimately to return to Unity consciousness, i.e, total Oneness with our Creator Source - resonated with me to my core; and still does, to this very more-enlightened day. Enlightened, as to knowledge, of various things; including the scientific world’s awareness now that there are more dimensions than our three, and, thus, that we are but part of a larger Whole.
And all that that implies.
2 This was in late 1968. I had been working at the Sun Valley, Idaho tourist complex that summer, as the foreman of a Building Maintenance work crew, and started getting restless, feeling that things needed to start moving on Earth, and if the Mormon Church were indeed true, why wasn’t it doing anything about it, all?? So I quit, and headed for where I had attempted to find answers to life earlier in my life: to the stacks of a large library. That original one was the stacks of the New York Public Library (back in late ’55 thru most of ’56). This one figured to be the stacks of the BYU Library. So off I went.
Well, one would, wouldn’t they, if they were obsessed with Truth. At all costs.
At - all - costs. Including to one’s comfortable life.
And humanity’s.
3 ‘Mormon’ purportedly being a scribe/ancient prophet whose records it was that were found in upstate New York; to be uncovered for this ’time and season,’ to join the ‘stick’ (record) of Joseph with the ‘stick’ (the Old Testament) of Judah.
How they got there, and what it all means, is another story. But just to mention here a bit of tittle-tattle: There is apparently in the Book of Mormon somewhere reference to the country ‘from whose bourn no traveller returns’. How some words by Shakespeare got into the (purported) copy of an ancient manuscript from Mesomerica, I leave to your imagination.
4 On its surface, not a far-fetched idea. There is plenty of evidence that biblical-era peoples went from that ‘home’ base as far at the least as what became known as Ireland. When you’re traveling with the aid of ’divine’ means, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from there across the Atlantic to the American continent. Where there is plenty of evidence of 'cultural cross-fertilization'. But to continue.
5 The growing Church moved on without him when it went West under Brigham Young, after the murder of Smith. Finding enough in my search to put me off the Church, I never traced down whatever evidence there might be, in the family history of Rigdon, to confirm this take on the story.
There’s a story there, if one wants to go to the trouble of trying to uncover it. In the meantime…
6 see article by M. Wells Wakeman on the Internet on this subject (’Stela 5, Izapa, As “The Lehi Tree-Of-Life Stone" - A Reply To Recent Attacks’ - ancientamerica.org)
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