Why Joseph Smith's Treasure Digging Causes People to Leave the Mormon Church
Part 1 in a series on "Why People Leave the Mormon Church" by John Dehlin
This is a living document. I welcome feedback and will incorporate it along with my own edits over time. Please feel free to share comments, criticisms, and suggestions.
For almost 200 years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e. “the Mormon Church”) has taught its investigators1, along with millions of highly impressionable children2, the following official narrative regarding its founding prophet, Joseph Smith, in preparation for baptism.
Official(ish) Mormon Church Founding Narrative
In 1820, an “uneducated” 14-year-old New York farm boy named Joseph Smith was confused about which Christian church to join. Retreating to a grove of trees to ask which church was true, God and Jesus appeared to him, and said to join NONE of the existing churches, because all were (in essence) wrong, abominable, and corrupt.3
Three years later, in 1823, a floating deceased white Native American angel prophet named Moroni allegedly appeared to Joseph Smith (three times in one night! and a fourth the next day!), promising to give him golden plates at a future date.
[Moroni] said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants
- Joseph Smith History 1:344
In 1827, after seven years of…oh….I don’t know….normal, everyday, relatively benign but mostly normative and righteous youthful activities….Joseph Smith finally obtained the elusive golden plates from angel Moroni. Fortunately, the plates were (surprise!) conveniently and miraculously buried in a hill right near his boyhood home!
Because Joseph chose to obtain the plates at night, and to bring no one with him to the actual recovery site (not even his trusted wife), no one was able to actually witness the plates’ recovery. Once Joseph “obtained” the plates, he claimed that God commanded that no one else could actually see the plates, else God would smite them. Until, of course, God eventually decided to let witnesses “see” the plates. But I digress.
According to Joseph and the Mormon church, Joseph spent the next three years thrashing between frantically hiding the plates from anyone who might actually see them (including his own scribes and family), and thoughtfully “translating” them from a to-this-day-unknown language (“Reformed Egyptian”)5 into what is now known as the Book of Mormon.6. Below is a common example of how the Mormon church has chosen to visually depict the mechanics of Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon translation (e.g., plates on a table, Joseph studying them intently, most often with no visual aid, a scribe on the other side of a veil).
Finally in 1830, upon completion of the Book of Mormon “translation,” God authorized Joseph Smith to restore His one and only non-corrupt and non-abominable true church on the earth, of which Joseph Smith was humbly self-designated a “seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ.”7
A sidenote: Believing Mormons should know, but likely don’t, that seer literally meant “able to see through a peep stone.”
There you have it! This is (more or less) the official founding Mormon church narrative — as told to investigators, impressionable Mormon children, and trusting members for almost 200 years.
I mean…who WOULDN’T join a church with this founding narrative? So what is the problem?
What the Mormon Church Didn’t/Doesn’t Tell its Investigators, Children, and Many Members
As someone born into Mormonism — who also served a two year mission for the church — I did not discover until my 30’s that there are a few very important details in this founding narrative that the church intentionally hid from me, and from many other investigators and church members.
#1 - Joseph Smith’s First Vision Claim Emerged SUPER Late: To my knowledge, there is no indication that Joseph Smith told anyone — not his parents, not his siblings, not his friends, and not even his own wife — about this alleged “First Vision” until 1832, two years after the church was founded, and a full 12 years after the event allegedly transpired.8 To many, this late accounting credibly calls into question the story’s validity.9
#2 - Joseph Smith’s First Vision Story Changed Significantly Each Time He Told It: Adding to its late appearance, the LDS Church has only recently acknowledged to general membership that Joseph Smith’s retelling of the First Vision narrative changed significantly each time he told the story10.
It is also worth noting that this official First Vision account did not emerge until 18 years after the event allegedly occurred (1838). This late and varied appearance reinforces the previous concern that Joseph Smith was either exaggerating his First Vision story, or making it up completely111213.
#3 - The Mormon Church Hid from Us Several Crucial Details in Joseph Smith’s Story: The biggest problem of all with this founding narrative, however, is that it intentionally omits crucial information about Joseph Smith’s involvement in fraudulent, illegal activities, prior to any claims of a First Vision. These illegal activities also have a direct and somewhat disturbing tie to the alleged “translation” of the Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith’s Illegal and Fraudulent Treasure Digging
Between the years of 1822 and 1827 — before ever claiming to see God and Jesus, before producing the Book of Mormon, and certainly before starting the Mormon church — Joseph Smith actively engaged in the illegal and fraudulent practice of treasure digging with a magic peep or “seer” stone. This practice was also referred to as peeping, scrying, juggling, and glass looking.
U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin condemned this practice as early as 1729.
“There are amongst us great numbers of honest artificers and labouring people, who, fed with a vain hope of growing suddenly rich, neglect their business, almost to the ruining of themselves and [their] families, and voluntarily endure abundance of fatigue in a fruitless search after imaginary treasures. They wander through the woods and bushes by day to discover the marks and signs; at midnight they repair to the hopeful spot with spades and pickaxes; full of expectation they labour violently, trembling at the same time in every joint, through fear of certain malicious demons who are said to haunt and guard such places. At length a mighty hole is dug, and perhaps several cartloads of earth thrown out, but alas, no cag or iron pot is found! No seaman’s chest crammed with Spanish pistoles, or weighty pieces of eight! Then they conclude, that through some mistake in the procedure, some rash word spoke, or some rule of art neglected, the guardian spirit had power to sink it deeper into the earth and convey it out of their reach.”
- Benjamin Franklin, Printed in The American Weekly Mercury, March 27, 172914
This sort of treasure digging was explicitly illegal in New York in the 1820’s — during the time Joseph was involved in the practice.
[Disorderly conduct/disorderly person is defined as] "pretending . . . to discover where lost goods may be found . . . all jugglers, and all persons pretending to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found"15
- Laws of the State of New-York (Albany: H. C. Southwick, 1813), 1:114, 115-17, 134
Joseph Smith’s father in law, Isaac Hale, described Joseph Smith’s activities as follows:
I first became acquainted with JOSEPH SMITH, Jr. in November, 1825. He was at that time in the employ of a set of men who were called “money-diggers;” and his occupation was that of seeing, or pretending to see by means of a stone placed in his hat, and his hat closed over his face. In this way he pretended to discover minerals and hidden treasure. His appearance at this time, was that of a careless young man—not very well educated, and very saucy and insolent to his father. Smith, and his father, with several other ‘money-diggers’ boarded at my house while they were employed in digging for a mine that they supposed had been opened and worked by the Spaniards, many years since. Young Smith gave the ‘money-diggers’ great encouragement, at first, but when they had arrived in digging, to near the place where he had stated an immense treasure would be found—he said the enchantment was so powerful that he could not see. They then became discouraged, and soon after dispersed. This took place about the 17th of November, 1825; and one of the company gave me his note for $12[.]68 for his board, which is still unpaid.16
- Isaac Hale, December 22, 1833 in Susquehanna Register
One artistic rendering of Joseph Smith’s involvement in treasure digging can be seen here:
Finally, in 1826, Joseph Smith was arrested for this illegal activity, and was ultimately charged and found guilty of:
“Being a "glass looker" and a "disorderly person" in an attempt to defraud Josiah Stowell, his former employer.”.
- MORMONR, Joseph Smith and Fraud Allegations1718
For those who claim that Joseph was never actually “convicted” of the crime, I would need your help understanding this piece of evidence:
“And therefore the court find the defendant guilty—14cost warrant, 19 cts, complaint upon oath 25.7 Witnesses 87½, Recognizance 25, Mittimus 19, Recognizance or witness 75, Subpoena 18—$268.15 [p. [1]]”
- State of New York v. JS–A, 20 March 1826. Appendix: Docket Entry, 20 March 1826 [State of New York v. JS–A]19
As uncomfortable as these facts may be to believing Mormons, this is why I and others feel comfortable calling Joseph Smith a “convicted fraud.” To me, it is simply a matter of fact.
Also, a few crucial details to note in Joseph Smith’s behavior:
Joseph claimed to be able to find buried treasure buried in the earth.
Joseph claimed that this treasure was protected by a spirit.
Joseph used his magic peep stone and hat to try to locate the buried treasure.
No one was ever able to actually verify that Joseph actually found buried treasure.
Joseph was somehow able to convince some people (like Josiah Stowell) that the treasure was real, even if he could not ever physically produce said treasure.
This pattern will re-emerge (see below).
Once He Was Found Guilty of Fraud, Joseph Smith Pivoted from Treasure Digger to Book of Mormon Translator, “Prophet,” and “Seer”
This story gets worse. Not only has the Mormon church withheld Joseph’s criminal record from its investigators and members, for almost 200 years the Mormon church has also intentionally misled investigators and church members about the means by which Joseph Smith “translated” the Book of Mormon. As mentioned and depicted visually above, the Mormon church consistently taught through lessons, as well as through art, that Joseph Smith thoughtfully studied the golden plates, sitting at a table, as he translated them from “Reformed Egyptian” to English.
Thanks to several courageous and (often) excommunicated Mormon historians and Internet critics, along with the cartoon SouthPark…
…we now know that Joseph Smith did “not” translate the Book of Mormon as the church suggested in its official narrative. Instead, we learn that: 1) Joseph Smith used the exact same stone in the hat in his “translation” of the Book of Mormon that he used to illegally and fraudulently search and dig for treasure, and 2) the gold plates were not used in the translation.
From Joseph Smith’s wife Emma:
He had neither manuscript nor book to read from… I frequently wrote day after day… He would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face… and the translation would appear on it.
- "Last Testimony of Sister Emma,' Saints' Herald 26, no. 19 (October 1, 1879): 289, M291.5 S157 v. 1- 1860-, Church History Library20
From David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon:
At times when Brother Joseph would attempt to translate, he would look into the hat in which the stone was placed, he found he was spiritually blind and could not translate. He told us that his mind dwelt too much on earthly things, and various causes would make him incapable of proceeding with the translation.
The plates were not before Joseph while he translated, but seem to have been under his control.
- David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ by a Witness to the Divine Authenticity of The Book of Mormon, (Richmond, MO: David Whitmer, 1887).21
Now, compare these firsthand accounts to a sampling of how the Mormon church has chosen to visually depict the Book of Mormon translation over the past two hundred years in its missionary and educational materials. Notice anything missing? Notice what shouldn’t be there?
You guessed it. No inclusion of the awkward stone and hat. And the plates shouldn’t be there. At all.
If the Mormon church had chosen to be honest in its depictions of Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon translation, it would have provided depictions more like this:
It would have depicted Joseph Smith with his face in a hat, with no gold plates in use. To many, it’s a totally different story when depicted this way.
Remarkably, the entire Book of Mormon creation story is an almost exact replica of Joseph Smith’s illegal treasure digging activities (as mentioned previously):
Joseph claimed to be able to find buried treasure buried in the earth (i.e. golden plates).
Joseph claimed that [the golden plates were] protected by a spirit (i.e. Moroni).
Joseph used his magic peep stone and hat to [translate] the buried treasure.
No one [credible] was ever able to actually verify that Joseph actually found the [golden plates] (more on this later).
Joseph was somehow able to convince people [like Emma Smith and David Whitmer] that the treasure was “real,” even if he could not ever physically produce said treasure.
Sound familiar?
The Original Fraud is Not Nearly as Bad as the Cover-Up
Church leaders have known about these historical problems since its inception. The deception has been intentional. And yet, only in recent years, and only after having been relentlessly critiqued by excommunicated historians like Fawn McKay Brodie22, Jerald and Sandra Tanner23, Grant Palmer24, and excommunicated Internet critics such as myself25, Jeremy Runnells26, and Bill Reel27, has the Mormon church begun to portray the Book of Mormon translation accurately.
For fun, here’s a photo of current prophet Russell M. Nelson engaging with one of Joseph’s hats (or some sort of stand-in prop). On the one hand, “Yay! The church is starting to acknowledge that which they denied for almost 200 years.” On the other hand, they really had no choice. The Internet, along with the accompanying member defections in response to their intentional deceit, literally forced their hand.
And even still, in spite of the church’s forced, born-again, and yet half-hearted transparency, the church continues to largely neglect showing these sorts of accurate depictions to investigators and impressionable children.
Questions to Ponder:
Why would God want or need Joseph Smith to use the instruments and methods of fraud to find and “translate” a holy book?
Why would Joseph even need the golden plates if he wasn’t going to use them in his “translation"?
Perhaps most importantly, why would the Mormon church work so hard to hide these facts from its investigators and members for almost two centuries — culminating in the excommunication of over a half dozen historians and Internet critics (who were actually telling the truth)?
The answers are simple:
The Mormon church was embarrassed by Joseph Smith’s fraudulent and illegal treasure digging, as well as by his use of the peep stone and hat in the creation of the Book of Mormon.
The church was worried that telling the truth about these matters would likely limit missionary and member conversions worldwide, and could possibly lead to member disaffection.
Thus, the church chose to hide this information from its investigators and members, and to excommunicate members who spoke openly about these things. In my opinion, this second fraud by Mormon church leaders was far worse than Joseph’s original fraud.
From the tens of thousands of ex-Mormons I’ve communicated with, the betrayal of trust by leaders has been far more damaging than the treasure digging itself.
Almost Two Hundred Years of Deception by the Mormon Church
And so, after almost two centuries of omissions, denials, and the excommunication of innocent historians and truth-tellers, the Mormon church has only recently begun to acknowledge to the world and its general membership that Joseph Smith was, indeed, found guilty28 of illegal treasure digging29, and that he used his stone and hat to “translate” the Book of Mormon30. Of course there was no apology to the members for the betrayal of trust. Of course church leaders have not apologized to the wrongly excommunicated historians and critics. And of course (to date) little to none of this information appears to have been included in the church’s education for children, nor in its missionary lessons for investigators. That is how Mormon leaders roll.
The church doesn’t seek apologies, and we don’t give them.
- Mormon Apostle Dallin H. Oaks31
Now to be clear, I do not claim to be a perfectly honest man. I have absolutely made innumerable mistakes in my life that have harmed my loved ones. But there are a few critical differences (as I see it) between me/my podcast and Joseph Smith/the Mormon church.
I do not claim to be God’s one true prophet, seer, or translator on this earth.
I do not claim to host God’s one true podcast (let alone His one and only true church).
I do not threaten my listeners or readers with eternal damnation if they disobey me, nor do I promise them eternal reward if they obey.
I do not require my listeners and readers to serve two year missions for my benefit, nor to give 10% of their income for the rest of their lives, nor to covenant the consecration of their entires lives for the building up of my organization. The LDS Church absolutely does.
Conclusion
I believe I have shown that for almost two centuries, millions of Mormon church investigators and impressionable children have been and will continue to be taught and baptized into the church under false pretenses. I believe that Mormon church investigators and children of record considering baptism deserve(d) to know this type of information BEFORE being committed to baptism.
These very reasonable expectations derive from the basic principle of Informed Consent32, which holds that:
…a person must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about accepting risk.
So…to answer the original question of this essay:
Reason #01 for people leaving Mormonism:
Joseph Smith’s Treasure Digging and its Cover-Up
The Mormon church intentionally hid from investigators, its impressionable children and its general membership for almost 200 years the facts that:
Joseph Smith was found guilty of fraudulent treasure digging with a stone in a hat prior to claiming to see God and Jesus, prior to creating the Book of Mormon, and prior to starting the church.
Joseph Smith used the same techniques and instruments of fraud (e.g., stone in the hat) to allegedly “translate” the Book of Mormon.
The Mormon church has also unjustly excommunicated historians and Internet critics for discussing this truth information publicly.
To date, the Mormon has neither apologized for these deceptions to current and former members, nor corrected the core problem (i.e. withholding the information from investigators, impressionable children, and most current members).
Please share your thoughts and feelings about this article in the comments below.
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I appreciate the recap and chronology and sources. This prompts a quick story while on my mission in 1978. I was asked by a University in Copenhagen if I would take part in a Theology class and teach three class sessions on comparative Christian Religions with a focus on Churches organized in America in the last couple centuries including Mormonism. I immediately accepted. There were about 100 students ... all studying to become Pastors in the State run Lutheran Church. In Denmark, you are born into the Church. I did a quick questionnaire and was surprised to find that nearly half of the students did not believe in God. It was explained to me by several students that being a Pastor is one of the higher paying social services jobs. You are well compensated plus you get to help people. After the first two sessions, the University called the mission office and left me a message that they wanted me to be aware that a particular Pastor was planning on coming to my final class presentation.. She was the one of the very first women Pastors in the Church with high visibility in the media, very outspoken, and quite brash. I had watched her on TV several times and was very impressed with her. My Mission President saw the message on my desk and gave it to me. He told me he would be coming to the class. I told him that was not necessary. He said if she was going to be there that he needed to be there. The entire session ended up focusing on her questions about Mormonism. And when I say questions, it started as a friendly interrogation with a lot of doctrine (some similar, some not to the Lutheran Church) and then turned into something much more confrontational when she started talking about the seer stone, the treasure hunting, the different accounts of the first vision, the papyri Joseph translated, the lack of archeological evidence of the B of M, polygamy, and the Priesthood Ban. I was actually very impressed that she knew so much. I planned to use that thought in how I would proceed. She did something quite clever. I remember her asking me what I personally believed about the Book of Mormon's translation and the Church's restrictions on Negroes? Not what the Church taught. I told her that I prayed that the restrictions would be lifted, and I agreed with her that Joseph had used a seer stone. My Mission President cut me off and bore his that none of what she had said was true. It got contentious, exactly what I wanted to avoid and what she hoped for in rallying the students to care. My intent was to give them enough information to spark possible interest in learning more and leave a good impression of Mormonism in their future ecclesiastical roles. In attacking their respected Pastor, my Mission President left a very negative impression. And the drive back to the Mission Office was not pleasant. He told me that I had obviously been reading way too much anti-mormon literature. It was of Satan, and he said I needed to repent. He was particularly upset about the seer stone. He kept asking me, "How could you agree with her?" He simply didn't want to know the truth about the seer stone. He even said if I wasn't his Personal Secretary in the Mission, he just might want to send me packing. A couple of days later, he brought me a quote from Joseph Fielding Smith where he said there is no authentic statement in the history of the Church that the use of such a stone was made in that translation. Side note: This Pastor reached out to me in the Office the following month. She invited me to attend a sermon she was giving the following Sunday. She told me that I would find it interesting. I grabbed another missionary in the office and we went to hear her speak. Topic... the importance getting a personal relationship with God. And not relying on others for what you believe. We spoke after the service, she was happy that I had come. She wanted to thank me for teaching the sessions and asked if I had patched things up with my Mission Leader. She then encouraged me to always rely on and react to my own personal beliefs.
I commented on a YouTube video of yours recently that I think applies here too: Joseph Smith seemed to surgically skirt the law against using visionary means to find treasure while also trying and legitimize his past actions/methods. Doubling down as it were, but legally.
Joseph had visions of golden treasures, but they weren't too be sold. Instead they had a story on them of great worth! Religious importance! His investors were not investing in him having visions to lead them to treasure. They were investing in his visionary translation of the story the treasure contained! And the translation could be turned into a book, which could be sold.
And how did he string along his investors/benefactors for so long? The same way he did before! "Well the angel said I wasn't ready, I didn't have a box to carry them so I put them in a log, no one can see them unless God makes it "manifest" to them, the angel took them back!" Excuse after excuse after excuse. The pattern of behavior was there in his conviction. It's a modified story, adapted to overcome legal risk.
Was it only greed? Probably not, I'm sure he was deeply religious. And deeply religious people are also capable of committing fraud. They are also well equipped to convince themselves that they're doing God's work while doing it.
While Joseph may have been charismatic and an impressive storyteller there are plenty of examples of less impressive people conning huge numbers of people. If anything, I think we need to lower our expectations of the people who first followed Joseph. They were credulous, easily duped people. We've got a survivorship bias: those who were impressed and convinced had a strong desire to tell everyone how true it was, while those who didn't probably didn't care except for a small few. Kind of like how MLMs have millions of adherents while there's just a few journalists who expose their lies.
So I'm summation, you've got a pattern of behavior Joseph engaged in, retooled to overcome legal accountability, that was constantly reiterated into a more and more resonant and convincing prophetic calling.