Early Mormonism and the Magic World View – D. Michael
Quinn – 4 Stars
Title: Early
Mormonism and the Magic World View
Author: D.
Michael Quinn
Publisher: Signature
Books
Year: Softcover
(Originally) 1987
Rating: 4 Stars
Price and
Purchasing Options: You will NOT see this book in LDS second hand stores,
nor will you find it in traditional LDS bookstores. I would recommend getting it directly from Amazon,
or Barnes and Nobel. This book is one of
those books that has been mislabeled throughout its publication, and therefore
will probably never really get the credit it deserves, and will not share the
same space with comparable works in the LDS community
Review: This
book easily gets 4 stars, as it is the best and most comprehensive book on the
subject of Early Mormonism and the use of Magic in the culture that it
developed from.
This is a hard review to do because there is so much that
could be discussed about this book. I
will try and start simple, and then highlight some of the reasons why this book
is so important, and why this book has easily been mislabeled.
The book covered the influence of the Magic culture of
the early 19th Century on the Smith family, and therefore Joseph
Smith, Jr himself. It also uses that
same premise to highlight how it not only influences Smith, but some or much of
the actions and interpretations that in turn influence early Mormonism at its
beginnings.
This book covers seer stones, the use of spells, dates
and times in astrology, myths and magic legends – and helps explain why Joseph
was either so willing or even prepared to have the experiences he had because
of these Magic narratives. Quinn also highlights
how even though the Smith’s evolved, that didn’t mean they entirely abandoned
or grew out of that influence.
As you can tell this book is not necessarily for the
beginner in studying Mormonism, and makes no attempt at helping to reconcile the
Gospel of Jesus Christ with the church.
However, despite this being labeled at times as an anti-Mormon text, or
something designed for the unfaithful, this book is actually not that at
all. It is a book intended to highlight
facts, and help bring to light the realities of the time. Even Quinn in his introduction acknowledges
his standpoint that even with these influences, it doesn’t negate Smiths
prophetic calling or his church. As I
see it, it actually helps be reconcile Smith as a human being subject to the
culture and times he lived in, just as we are today; he wasn’t above them, he
was living in them.
But this book is complicated, not in the writing, but in
its existence. See this book is written
at a time, where the Church wasn’t able, willing, or ready to accept new
narratives on Smith, and they just started about a decade before to realize
that they might not know everything about their own history. At this time any narrative that came forth
that was not 100% equal to that published in the standard works, or
contradictory to the interpretation of that narrative was dismissed, and
criticized.
So, as I read this, I also read what I believe Quinn felt
like he had to do. In order to really
get this message across, he had to write the book in a way where he bombarded the pages with
evidence and witnesses, etc. Honestly,
each page seems like over-kill in driving the message home that these cultural
norms were a reality within the Smith family, and influencing early
Mormonism. It borders on almost too
much, but I can see why Quinn wrote in such a way; because to do anything else
would be to give place for others to find ways to dismiss what he was sharing
from his research. In this light, it is
a harder book for many to read.
It is also for this reason, that you can easily get the
idea, because the book is literally all about Magic, that Quinn believes that
the restoration is all about Magic. I
don’t believe that is his intent either, it is just a consequence to the way he
had to write the book for the purpose of his intent at the time.
This book has been criticized, initially for his content,
and then for his personally and his later works (which should hold no baring on
this text in and of itself). It is true that
he was formally excommunicated from the Church in the 1990’s, and although I
don’t personally know where he stands, he continues to write on the Church as a
topic of his studies; but this book was written while he was a professor at
BYU, and ultimately the book has had a significant impact on Mormonism.
Today if you are reading this review, you have been
introduced to some of these concepts. In
fact, the church today is now accepting and normalizing much of this research
within their narrative; and they have had to because they can’t avoid it, nor
should they. This is the book that
impacted and started all of it, and there hasn’t been another book that has
addressed this topic to this level since.
The irony is the criticism that the content of this book
got when it was published and for decades after, which content is not being
normalize throughout Mormonism as a whole.
This is the best book on the subject, and a book that
ultimately changed the future of Mormonism and its own narrative. It took a couple of decades… but it did it.
Suggestions: If you are serious about learning more about
the Magic World View of the 19th century and its influence on Early
Mormonism, AND you are already comfortable with Joseph Smith being a human
being, than get this book. If you are
just curious, or generally interested in LDS history – this book is really
intense in research, and you would probably do well just getting a good
overview from the first few chapters of Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling – he seems
to synthesize a good portion of Quinn’s work.
I hope you have enjoyed this review, and I encourage you to
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Review #53
Tags: 4 Stars,
Ryan Daley, D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Church
Hisotry
