Whose fault? Yours or the church's?

[ERCougar]

Also, the face-in-the-hat aspect is usually found so far down on the list of red flags that most who would leave the church over it have already done so.

[Donuthole]

A blog I was reading today brought this up. I have to admit I didn't know about the head in hat translation method until I saw the episode.

Take solace that you didn't learn about it in a discussion on CB. (Not that anybody here learned about it that way. No sir. Nope.)

[creekster]

Because putting a stone in a hat was a common practice for glass lookers, Joseph had been taught the technique by Sally Chase (Joseph's neighbor), and Joseph had found his favorite stone by having its location revealed to him while looking in another stone.

Most of the Book of Mormon wasn't translated with the U & T, but that story seems less enmeshed in folk magic. It probably isn't (autumnal equinox, anyone?), but it seems more palatable to the correlation folks who have pushed it over the stone in hat accounts (which are credible and from faithful sources like Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and members of the Smith family).

Both stories are odd to today's ears, but the stone in hat story is more obviously neck deep in folk magic. The U & T story has ties to the Old Testament (and to the remains of its magic traditions--like Joseph's divination cup--for those who go searching), and is easier to finesse.

I thik this is a good explanation for why the hat method was minimized and under-reported in the day, but I also think Indy's point is a good one; in terms of a modern person accepting the BOM in the present, there probabyl isnt a huge difference, given that the overtones of folk magic no longer ring in our ears.

[ERCougar]

Take solace that you didn't learn about it in a discussion on CB. (Not that anybody here learned about it that way. No sir. Nope.)

Of course, there are GAs who still don't know about this. Right, JIC? (Hint: His name rhymes with Schmencer Schmondie.)

That little tidbit still just kills me...

[Jarid in Cedar]

Agree with this completely, which makes it all the stranger to me that we aren't just out in the open about it. I think the difficulty is that all of the official (scriptural or JSH) references are to the breast plate and spectacles but I see no problem with saying it happened more than one way. I think it is patent to anyone who has looked at the issue for more than five minutes that Joseph was the conduit for revelation, not a stone, not glasses affixed to a breast plate, not the POGP scrolls and not even the gold plates.

My issue is this:

If you have the hat and the seer stone, why do you need the golden plates at all? That is not translating as much as divining.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Of course, there are GAs who still don't know about this. Right, JIC? (Hint: His name rhymes with Schmencer Schmondie.)

That little tidbit still just kills me...

That was amazing....and thank you for picking that scab off today. I needed that

[Rosebud]

So strange... I've known about the hat and the stone thing since I was a little girl. I think my parents told me when they taught me about the translation of the BOM. And as for the GA... I'd assume that he knew and was just doing his best to keep up the PR.

[LA Ute]

They both sound like hocus pocus to me. I just think, as was already pointed out, that it is odd that we always hear about the U&T w/ breastplate thing and never the hat thing.

Next thing you know, some joker will claim that God spoke to him out of a bush that seemed to be on fire, but wasn't being consumed. Sheesh, it's not even creative. A bush? Why not a large tree, at least? My first question to that guy would be, what he was drinking at the time?

[Jarid in Cedar]

Next thing you know, some joker will claim that God spoke to him out of a bush that seemed to be on fire, but wasn't being consumed. Sheesh, it's not even creative. A bush? Why not a large tree, at least? My first question to that guy would be, what he was drinking at the time?

Whatever it is, I would like some of it.

[Goatnapper'96]

Yes.

The issue, IMO, isn't so much church curriculum as much as the atmosphere. I have no real issues with the Church materials and curriculum, but culturally we have a long way to go. Clearly the mentality that anything that is not faith promoting or better described as "could be disturbing" to some being forbidden from discussion is the de facto atmosphere. I don't think the Church has to address these topics, but it is unfortunate that culturally it is forbidden to discuss them during a sunday school lesson.

[Goatnapper'96]

Whatever it is, I would like some of it.

KAVA- THE NECTAR OF THE GODS!!!!!!!

[LA Ute]

The issue, IMO, isn't so much church curriculum as much as the atmosphere. I have no real issues with the Church materials and curriculum, but culturally we have a long way to go. Clearly the mentality that anything that is not faith promoting or better described as "could be disturbing" to some being forbidden from discussion is the de facto atmosphere. I don't think the Church has to address these topics, but it is unfortunate that culturally it is forbidden to discuss them during a sunday school lesson.

Indeed. I wish I had a brilliant solution to this. How to deal with the lowest common denominator problem?

(Maybe each ward needs to have 2 Gospel Doctrine classes, one for people who can handle "could be disturbing" stuff and another for those not quite ready. The flaw in this idea is that I would need to be in charge of deciding who goes into which class, and the Church is too big for me to do it everywhere.)

[Pheidippides]

The issue, IMO, isn't so much church curriculum as much as the atmosphere. I have no real issues with the Church materials and curriculum, but culturally we have a long way to go. Clearly the mentality that anything that is not faith promoting or better described as "could be disturbing" to some being forbidden from discussion is the de facto atmosphere. I don't think the Church has to address these topics, but it is unfortunate that culturally it is forbidden to discuss them during a sunday school lesson.

I concur. It was quite a shock to find out all the stuff I hadn't been told, and it made me resentful for a time. I got over it, though, under the LA Ute line of thinking: if I can accept angelic visitations and such, stones in hats ain't that bad.

[jay santos]

Why is the head in the hat method any stranger than some breastplate, bows and eyeglasses that you supposedly dug out of the ground?

John Q Mormon: You know, I can accept a guy strapping on some foreign apparatus that no one has ever heard of to translate, but putting your head in a hat? I'm sorry, but I ain't buyin' it.

It shouldn't. And it doesn't now. But I admit it was somewhat disconcerting at the time because I didn't know it and assumed it was an anti-Mormon thing.

[Jarid in Cedar]

KAVA- THE NECTAR OF THE GODS!!!!!!!

I tried Kava in Fiji and other than a tingling tongue, I can say that I was not that impressed. My mood altering substance naive wife however felt differently.