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FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During the Second Great Awakening, Joseph Smith, Jr. lived on his parents' farm near Palmyra, New York. At the time churches in the region contended so vigorously for souls that western New York became known as the "burned-over district" because the fires of religious revivals had burned over it so often.[1] Western New York was also noted for its participation in a "craze for treasure hunting."[2] Beginning as a youth in the early 1820s, Smith was periodically hired, for about $14 per month, as a scryer, using what were termed "seer stones" in attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.[3] Smith's contemporaries described his method for seeking treasure as putting the stone in a white stovepipe hat, putting his face over the hat to block the light, and then "seeing" the information in the reflections of the stone.[4]
Smith did not consider himself to be a common "peeper" or "glass-looker," a practice he called "nonsense."[5] Rather, Smith and his family viewed their folk magical practices as spiritual gifts.[6] Later, Smith would view the power of "seeing" as the greatest of all divine gifts, greater even than that of a prophet.[7] Although Smith later rejected his youthful treasure-hunting activities as frivolous and immaterial, he never repudiated the stones themselves nor denied their presumed power to find treasure; nor did he ever relinquish the magic culture in which he was raised.[8] Joseph Smith's first stone, apparently the same one he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg,[9] found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors.[10] This stone may still be in the possession of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[11]FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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