Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Early Mormonism and the Magic World View/Chapter 6

Response to claims made in "Chapter 6: Mormon Scriptures, the Magic World View, and Rural New York's Intellectual Life"


Claims made in "Chapter 5: Visions and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon"
A work by author: D. Michael Quinn
 Claims made in "Chapter 7: The Persistence and Decline of Magic After 1830"

180

Claim
 Author's quote: The British Museum's library has never had a 3-to-1 ratio of books to London's population, yet that was the book-resident ratio of a bookstore in rural New York state in 1815.


Response

  • The author again exaggerates the availability of the occult books he insists—without evidence—were available to Joseph Smith in the early 1800s.
  • "In 1976, when the population of London proper was 2,700,000, the British Museum Library contained approximately eight million volumes, with a ratio of 2.96-to-1. But, is Quinn seriously claiming that frontier New York had a greater book-to-person ratio than contemporary London? Or that education, book reading, and scholarship were higher in Palmyra than London? Can anyone take this assertion seriously?"
  • William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]



182

Claim
The author claims that the cost of books described in the advertisements in upstate New York in the 1820s ranged from "44 cents to a dollar each."


Response

  • The author grossly underestimates the cost of books in Joseph Smith's world, especially the esoteric and occult books which he claims were an influence.
  • For a detailed response, see: Availability of cheap magic books?



187

Claim
The book further claims that "Antoine Faivre has also emphasized Barrett's book in the general European revival of magic during the first decades of the 1800s."


Response

  • The author distorts his source, and neglects to mention that the influence of The Magus would come well after Joseph Smith's early years in New England.
  • "In reality, rather than emphasizing it, Faivre mentions Barrett's book in one sentence, in passing: 'a compilation destined to be a great success heralds the occult literature to come: The Magus (1801) by Francis Barrett.'"
  • William J. Hamblin, "That Old Black Magic (Review of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, by D. Michael Quinn)," FARMS Review of Books 12/2 (2000): 225–394. [{{{url}}} off-site]


206

Claim
It is claimed that Joseph gave Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball divining rods as a symbol of gratitude for their loyalty.


Response

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