So I think Joseph tends to move quite away from the allegorical even though he has an appreciation for the allegorical as a way to discover the literal.

FWIW, here is the passage in Ninian Smart’s Worldviews that underlies my current view of Joseph Smith’s distinctiveness. And it should be evident that I use his definitions of the key terms.
“If you stress the numinous, you stress that our salvation or liberation (our becoming holy) must flow from God the Other. It is he who brings it to us through his grace. You also stress the supreme power and dynamism of God as creator of the cosmos. If, on the other hand, you stress the mystical and non-dual, you tend to stress how we attain salvation and liberation through our own effort at mediation, not by the intervention of the Other… If we combine the two, but accent the numinous, we see mystical union as a kind of close embrace with the other—like human love, where the two are one and yet the two-ness remains. If the accent is on the mystical rather than the numinous, then God tends to be seen as a being whom we worship, but in such a way that we get beyond duality.” Smart, Worldviews, 71–72.

Beyond that though I agree. The difference between the numinous and mystical is pretty significant and a key difference between Mormons and Platonists like the transcendentalists. Where there is common ground is that Mormons often find the profound and spiritual in this world rather than in some otherworldly realm. In that way they are like that old Zen story about the guy seeking enlightenment.

Before seeking enlightenment mountains were just mountains. While seeking enlightenment mountains weren’t just mountains. Once enlightenment was found mountains were mountains.

Meaning that often folks seeking the profound mystical experience seek something otherworldly. But many authentic mystical encounters (such as Emerson’s view of nature) are in the world. We recognize as enchanted that which was always here.

The difference that Mormonism adds is that we take what was other worldly and make in part of this world. So in a way it’s a further step yet.

While Emerson typically rejects the notion of a personal God, and shocked the Divinity school by telling the ministers to be that they should see Jesus as a man, and rejects the idea of finding out about the after-life, or seeking a personal answer in words, I find his poem Threnody directly contradicts nearly everything else he says. In the poem, structured much like the letters from Liberty Jail, his despair turns to light on recieving a personal answer in words regarding his lost son, Waldo.

I decided that the key differences in the two men stem from Emerson’s primarily mystic experience (other than Threnody) in contrast to Joseph’s experience bridging the numinous and the mystic. (Citing Kotlko’s Sunstone essay on Mormonism and Mysticism, and Ninian Smart on the implications of the bridging). Common teachings grew from the mystic common ground. Joseph’s distinctive eschatological view, completely alien to Emerson’s thought, grows from his numinous theophanies.

It is fun to imagine a young Joseph Smith, recovering from his leg surgery, hobbling along the ocean beaches near Concord, and passing the slightly older Emerson.

Kevin Christensen
Pittsburgh, PA