By December 26, 2010
As I mentioned in the prospectus I posted, I see both striking resemblances between Mormonism and late Neoplatonism and important influences of late Neoplatonism on the history of Christianity that need to be explored. My committee balked at linking Mormonism to late Neoplatonism and wanted further proof. So I?ve been doing some research.
By May 2, 2017
Seven years ago when I was starting this project, I came across the three-tiered system of the Neoplatonist Hierocles, who called the first step the telestic, or purifying mystery rites. Thinking that was a remarkable similarity among many other similarities between Neoplatonism and Mormonism, I wrote this post giving an overview of those similarities and proposing Hierocles’s system as the possible source of that unusual word.
Many expressed understandable skepticism, and as I was brainstorming, I said the following in comment 17:
By April 24, 2017
In this previous post, I noted the similarities between DC 88:6-13 and a passage from Thomas Taylor’s translation of Plato’s Republic 571b-c. That passage happens to be right in the middle of Plato’s allegory of the cave, and upon further reflection, major elements from the cave seem to show up not only in section 88 but also 93.
By September 4, 2014
Yet arguing for the influence of these various thinkers on Smith raises the issue that Smith never once mentioned any of their writings. Visionaries often did not cite their sources, however: Jacob Boehme, Jane Lead, Emmanuel Swedenborg, and William Blake said nothing about what they were reading other than the Bible. This has caused problems for scholars who have tried to contextualize these visionaries. Swedenborg’s followers have tended to view claims of influence as delegitimizing and have argued against Swedenborg being influenced by other thinkers (similar to Mormon scholars’ concerns), but as Brian Gibbons argues, “The tendency of Swedenborg’s hagiographers to see his work as created ex nihilo is clearly untenable.”[1] Scholars have vigorously debated what William Blake’s influences might have been with Harold Bloom declaring that Blake “was not an antiquarian, a mystic, an occultist or theosophist, and not much of a scholar of any writings beyond the Bible and other poetry insofar as it resembled the Bible,” while numerous other scholars have argued that Blake was influenced by esoteric ideas, particularly Neoplatonism.
By September 4, 2014
Yet Mormonism was not simply a product of Joseph Smith digging through texts that described early Christianity and Judaism (though he likely made use of such texts). Smith?s earliest contact with Christian-Platonic ideas came through the Smith family?s religiosity. A series of dreams that Smith?s father had continually described the feeling that something fundamental was missing from the established churches; Smith?s notion that that the established churches and even the Bible were missing truth likely came from his father. As I argue in Chapters Two and Three, Smith?s father?s dreams align with visions described in John Dee?s spirit diary (1659). Dee and Smith had a number of additional similarities: both used a seer stone, wrote a book that was dictated by a person looking in a seer stone, made Enoch central to their theology, and had similar marital practices. Dee was heavily influenced by Christian Platonism (see below) and the similarities between Dee and Smith suggest that Smith felt that early modern visionaries could also have parts of the missing truth. Smith?s grandfather was a Universalist and his father joined them at one point; Origen?s writings inspired the rise of Universalism in early modern Europe.[1] In addition, the Smiths engaged in a number of traditions related to the cunning-folk, or those who either believed that they had special powers or believed that such could be derived from ?magic? books called grimoires. Grimoires were full of Neoplatonism (Platonic philosophy inspired by Ammonius), particularly theurgy.[2] Furthermore, evidence suggests that Smith?s father had some association with a movement called the New Israelites, who, among other things, believed that they really were Israelites, a claim that the Mormons also made. These connections suggest that interest in Jews was part of the Smith family religion, an interest that may have led Smith to read Allen?s Modern Judaism.
By August 26, 2014
Here I continue this series that discusses the possibility of a higher rite of initiation in early Christianity that may have had similarities to the apocalypses, the mysteries, and perhaps some Plato. Clement of Alexandria gave a number of hints in these directions. Alexandria also gave rise to Neoplatonism and Christian Platonists and Neoplatonists were often in the same circles. For instance, Plotinus, considered the founder of Neoplatonism, had the same tutor as Origen, a man named Ammonius Saccas. Furthermore, the Neoplatonists would begin to practice their own secret deifying rite: theurgy. Dominic O?Meara defines theurgy as ?a process for making man god.?[1]
By March 14, 2014
Okay, my last post talked about the concept of the “genius”: guardian beings like angels. Here I talk about a possible ritual that young Joseph Smith might have performed on the night of the Moroni visitation. Michael Quinn argued that Smith may have performed some type of ritual on the night of the visitation. After summarizing Quinn’s arguments, I present the following:
An additional piece of context for the Moroni visit was the statement from the neighbor that Smith was ?born with a genius.? Again, this was a Platonic notion that remained prevalent in grimoires.
By February 28, 2014
In 1964, D. P. Walker declared that scholars have neglected ?the revival of interest in the early, pre-Nicene Fathers of the Church,? Origen in particular.[1] In his book, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment, Walker details the centrality of Origen to the rise of Universalism in the late seventeenth century.
In that same year, Francis Yates published her much more influential Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Yates?s work overshadowed Walker?s, not only his brilliant Decline of Hell, but his equally competent Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella (1958) and The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (1972). Whereas Walker emphasized the importance of Plato, Christian Platonism, and the Fathers, Yates overshadowed all this with her hermetic thesis that treated Western esotericism as something other to Christianity and focused on the Corpus Hermeticum, a text of limited importance to that tradition.
By March 16, 2013
Lately I’ve had a number of people ask me to clarify what the “hermetic tradition” was and I realized that although I’ve written some blog posts dealing with the topic, I ought to make a few more clarifications. The notion of a Hermetic tradition is the work of Francis Yates and her very influential book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. It was this book that John Brooke used to frame Mormonism in his Refiner’s Fire. Yates’s work did much to shed light on early-modern modes of thought that had previously been under-explored but like most works, they get a little dated over time, and I will list a few of the critiques here.
One of the biggest problems was that Yates called a number of ideas “Hermetic” that were not in the Corpus Hermeticum [1]: like astrology, alchemy, and kabbalah. Such modes of thought, Yates argued, shared a common essence with Hermetism. Though Yates always used the term “Hermetism” (the preferred term of those who study antiquity) later scholars began using the term “Hermeticism” as a broader umbrella for the practices not in the Corpus Hermeticum, but similar in essence [2]. Thus “Hermetism” meant the ideas in the Corpus, “Hermeticism” meant the broader term. This move unfortunately created a bigger mess because the term “Hermeticism” became too vague. What was deemed Hermetic was now an intuitive judgment call, rather than a process of tying ideas back to particular sources.
By December 3, 2012
Continuing a tradition from the past three years, here is my overview of what I found to be the most noteworthy books and articles from the last twelve months. I like this format because it not only allows discussion of different media of publication, but it also encourages us to contemplate broader themes that are currently ?hot? in Mormon historiography. (Also make sure to check out Stapley’s always-helpful Christmas book list.)
As with previous years, I am posting this in early December and will thus miss those books published later this month. Further, the selection process was purely subjective and represent my own interests; please add your own suggestions in the comments.
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