The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 PDF
Preview The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844
MORMON RELIGIOUS BELIEF has long been a mystery to out- siders, either dismissed as anomalous to the American religious tradition or extolled as the most genuine creation of the American re- ligious imagination. This study presents the first extended analysis of Mormon theology to have been written against the backdrop of religion and popular culture in the early modern North Atlantic world, a context that permits the most coherent analysis of Mormon origins. John Brooke argues that Mormon doctrines of the mutuality of spirit and matter, of celestial marriage (in the nineteenth century, polygamous marriage), and of human deification can be understood only in light of the connections between the occult and the sectarian ideal of restoration forged among early modern religious radicals. Hermeticism, of which alchemy was the experimental practice, posited that humanity could regain the divine powers of Adam lost in the fall from Paradise; so too the prophet Joseph Smith promised the Mormon faithful that they would become "gods" through the restoration of ancient mysteries. Exploring the opposing forces of hermetic purity and danger - manifested in sectarian religion, magic, witchcraft beliefs, alchemy, Freemasonry, counterfeiting, and state formation - in the making of the Mormon church, the book closes with an overview of the transformation of Mormonism from the 1860s to the present. The Refiner's Fire The Refiner's Fire The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 JOHN L. BROOKE Tufts University CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521345453 © Cambridge University Press 1994 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1994 First paperback edition 1996 Reprinted 2001 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN-13 978-0-521-34545-3 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-34545-6 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-56564-6 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-56564-2 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2006 Portions of Part III were previously published in "'Of whole nations being born in one day': Marriage, money and magic in the Mormon cosmos, 1830-1846," Social Science Information (1991), Vol. 30, No. I. Reprinted with permission of Sage Publications Ltd. for Judy and Fred Contents List of Illustrations page ix List of Maps xi Preface xiii Part I: A Prepared People 1 Dreams of the Primal Adam 3 2 The True Spiritual Seed 30 3 Something of Our Ancestors 59 Part II: Hermetic Purity and Hermetic Danger 4 A Urim Spiritual 91 5 Alchymical Experiments 105 6 I Was Born in Sharon 129 Part III: The Mormon Dispensation 7 Secret Combinations and Slippery Treasures in the Land of Zarahemla 149 8 The Mysteries Defined 184 9 Temples, Wives, Bogus-Making, and War 209 10 The Keys to the Kingdom 235 11 A Tangle of Strings and the Kingdom of God 262 12 Let Mysteries Alone 278 Appendix: The Sectarian and Hermetic Circumstances of Mormon Origins in Vermont and New York 306 Abbreviations Used in Notes 311 Notes 314 Index 405
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