Where did Joseph Smith get his ideas for the "Three Degrees of Glory"?

Some have wondered where Smith got his descriptions of the afterlife as first described in Section 76 of the D&C. In D. Michael Quinn's excellent book "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," he gives a very fascinating source of Smith's "revelations" on the afterlife. Quinn offers an exhaustive examination of the sources for the 1832 D&C Section 76 "Vision" of the "three degrees of glory."

In fact, Smith's description of the "Celestial Kingdom" was not only a copy from earlier written works, but also very controversial to the Latter-Day Saints. The diaries of Orson Pratt and John Murdock from the 1830's record their efforts to reassure members who questioned the 1832 vision of heaven. The two men described countless excommunications of Mormons, including branch presidents, who denounced "the degrees of glory" as a "satanic revelation." Even Brigham Young had a hard time with it at first and described it as "a trial to many.

"Why were Mormons choking on this idea of three heavens? Quinn explains that it's because members correctly recognized it as coming from the occult. The only other sources of separate degrees in heaven came from occult writers of Smith's time.

For example, in 1758 a man by the name of Emanuel Swedenborg wrote a book about his visions of the afterlife. Swedenborg insisted: "There are three heavens," described as "entirely distinct from each other." He called the highest heaven "the Celestial Kingdom," and stated that the inhabitants of the three heavens corresponded to the "sun, moon and stars."

By Joseph Smith's own statements, he was familiar with Swedenborg's writings. Smith told a convert by the name of Edward Hunter that "Emanuel Swedenborg had a view of the world to come, but for daily food he perished."

I was so fascinated by the connection that Quinn documented, that I bought a copy of Swedenborg's book myself from Amazon.com. It's called Heaven and Hell and it's Wonders and was written way before Joseph Smith. Yet it describes the three Mormon degrees of glory quite well.

Not only does Quinn make a strong case that Smith knew all about Swedenborg's ideas, but he also shows that his book "Heaven and Hell and Its Wonders" was a book in Smith's hometown library since 1817. Quinn also writes that "Nine miles from Smith's farm, in 1826 the Canandaigua newspaper also advertised Swedenborg's book for sale. The bookstore offered Swedenborg's publications for as little as 37 cents.

"If you ever want to know details about the Mormon afterlife, read Swedenborg's book. Smith liberally plagiarized from it to come up with his D&C "visions" of the celestial, telestial and terrestrial kingdoms. But Swedenborg's works are definitely the originals.

My thoughts:

I have both of these books. I also have Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Polygamy: A History by Richard Van Wagoner, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (written by Grant Palmer, a current member of the church), and In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, written by Todd Compton.

These books are in publication because they have been well written, well documented, subjected to peer review and found to contain factual knowledge about events and circumstances surrounding the man Joseph Smith, his legal first wife Emma, his 33 plural wives, his prior accounts of the "First Vision", the many textural changes and revisions to the Book of Mormon, and the glossing over of history in the LDS church, so as to remain "faith promoting" rather than "based on facts". I didn't have to 'feel the truth' about these books. I actually READ them and took notes, and compared it to other books, with their versions of history, and then I came to the LOGICAL conclusion that the LDS church is founded upon a great falsehood: Joseph Smith did not find any gold plates, he did not translate any ancient records, he gathered information and ideas from many sources when developing and dictating the Book of Mormon and he did it all to make a profit, not become one.

When his tales of discovery and divine visions reached the masses, a new religious movement was born. He never backed down from his accounts, and instead kept expanding them to make the sequence of events flow more evenly, even discounting other's recollections and accusing those who pointed out his errors as "apostates". He spun a tale so well, it was hard to catch him in a direct lie. His foundation for this church rested solely upon the belief that he was a visionary, a "chosen seer" and a man called of God to perform a divine work. Now the foundation rests on maintaining this belief at all costs. That's why 'keeping a testimony' has become such a mantra in today's church. Members are cautioned against becoming "intellectual" and failing to "rely on the spirit to reveal truth". Since when does truth have to be qualified by feelings?

If I receive news that a loved one has been killed, do I "feel good, therefore it's true?" NO! I feel terrible, sick to my stomach, miserable, and completely distraught. Does that make the news I received "false" because my feelings indicate it? Well, that's just completely crazy to qualify information this way. Yet that is exactly what the LDS church is teaching members to do, discount information that is not "faith promoting" and gather truth from "correct sources" who can impart it with the "spirit".

This is completely opposite of what we do in real life! Yet they warn members that those who fail to believe are in the power of "Satan", creating fear of exercising logic and reason, even equating these with "evil". By doing this, everyone fails to trust their own instincts and become like little children, fed with a steady diet of milk for the rest of their lives.

In the words of the former prophet, Ezra Taft Benson:

“The Book of Mormon is the keystone of [our] testimony. Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they [apostates and anti-mormons] go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church..."

And a quote from Jeffrey R. Holland:

"To hear someone so remarkable say something so tremendously bold, so overwhelming in its implications, that everything in the Church — everything — rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of how it came forth, can be a little breathtaking. It sounds like a “sudden death” proposition to me. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward."

"Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, who, [1] after seeing the Father and the Son, [2] later beheld the angel Moroni, [3] repeatedly heard counsel from his lips, eventually [4] receiving at his hands a set of ancient gold plates which [5] he then translated according to the gift and power of God—or else he did not. And if he did not, in the spirit of President Benson’s comment, he is not entitled to retain even the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, and he is not entitled to be considered a great teacher or a quintessential American prophet or the creator of great wisdom literature. If he lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he is certainly none of those."

"I am suggesting that we make exactly that same kind of do-or-die, bold assertion about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine origins of the Book of Mormon. We have to. Reason and rightness require it. Accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and the book as the miraculously revealed and revered word of the Lord it is or else consign both man and book to Hades for the devastating deception of it all, but let’s not have any bizarre middle ground about the wonderful contours of a young boy’s imagination or his remarkable facility for turning a literary phrase. That is an unacceptable position to take—morally, literarily, historically, or theologically."
- Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, “True or False,” New Era, June 1995, Page 64
(Excerpted from a CES Symposium address given at Brigham Young University on August 9, 1994.)


So there you have it. Take the challenge. They are telling you that you have the right to discover your OWN truth, and make your OWN determination.