Mormons Own up to Joseph Smith's Occultism Mark Hofmann, the Salt Lake City documents dealer on trial for murder, recently admitted in court that he planted the two bombs that killed Steven Christensen and Katherine Sheets and that he forged at least two documents purported to be key pieces in the puzzle of early Mormon church history. This affair has dealt a great blow to the reputation of the Mormon church. The church has had to admit that it was buying documents from hofmann to prevent their publication. The documents dealt with Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's money-digging and involvement in occult practices. The church, in its zeal to keep the purchases secret, played right into Hofmann's hands by not having the documents examined for authenticity. Sure enough, the documents later were found to be forgeries. Despite this, the documents forced Mormon scholars to own up to Smith's background in occult practices and acknowledge that, the documents aside, there was enough evidence to prove Smith's occult involvement. Therefore, Mormon scholars have begun trying to justify Smith's practices, saying that he wasn't any worse than anybody else living at that time because belief in and practice of magic was pervasive in 18th and early 19th century America. The scholars go on to say that it was the coming of the enlightenment and rationalism that changed people's outlook on occult practices. These scholars say that since we don't live in that culture any longer, it's hard for us to put ourselves in those people's shoes. However, research shows that as early as 1788 in New York, and equally as early as Vermont, there were laws against occult practices such as palmistry and witchcraft and that the press was generally unfavorable to such claims. Undaunted by that, Mormon scholars are now trying to find rationale for Smith's occult practices. MORMON SCHOLAR DR. RICHARD ANDERSON CONCEDED IN HIS LATEST BYU STUDIES ARTICLE THAT SMITH DID INDEED PRACTICE MAGIC, (emphasis mine) but only up to 1826. When he dug up the gold plates, Anderson says, he realized that he had a serious mission and put his teenage follies behind him. While this scenario is at best questionable, it does have one of the staunch defenders of Mormon faith admitting that during the time Smith supposedly was being prepared for the life of a prophet, he was immersed in the occult and digging for money. From the April-June PFO by WPW For more information see below: This file has been brought to you by the ministry of the; Southern Maryland Christian Information Service BBS, (SMCIS) (301) 862-3160 HST P.O. Box 463 California, MD 20619 Sysop: Buggs Bugnon