Dead People Appear to Joseph Smith – Mormon Quotes

Ensign, August 1978, pg. 12; “In addition to Moroni, the Savior himself, whose advent among the Nephites is central in the book, appeared to Joseph in the First Vision, at the time section 76 was given, and in the Kirtland Temple. (History of the Church, 1:5–7, D&C 76: 19–24; D&C 110:1–10.)

In addition to these visits, early chroniclers record other visits of the Savior. For example, Zebedee Coltrin, speaking to the School of the Prophets of the Salt Lake Stake—which included President John Taylor and other general authorities—said that the Savior had appeared during a meeting two or three weeks after the organization of the original School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio. He passed through the room without speaking, and Joseph Smith identified the holy visitor: “That is Jesus, the Son of God, our elder brother.”

Several other Book of Mormon personalities came in relationship to the book’s publication. Parley P. Pratt, for one, said:

“Through that young man and the ministration of holy angels to him that book came forth to the world.”(Journal of Discourses, 9:212.)

Thus, Joseph Smith was apparently aided by the ministering of angels who had been Nephites during mortality.

Elder George Q. Cannon named two of these angels as, probably, Alma and Nephi. (Journal of Discourses, 13:47.) In a later address, Elder Cannon said Joseph was visited constantly by angels, including Moroni and the heads of various dispensations, that Joseph Smith’s mind “might be fully saturated with a knowledge of the things of God, and that he might comprehend the great and holy calling that God had bestowed upon him.” (Journal of Discourses, 23:362.)… Elder Orson Pratt, in a personal letter to John Christensen of Brigham City, Utah, testified:

“The prophet often received visits from Nephi, Moroni, Peter, James, John (the beloved), John (the Baptist), Elijah, Moses, the three Nephites, etc. etc.”

Let us make no mistake. Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission and the translation of the Book of Mormon were events for which righteous beings had waited and prayed for centuries. The unseen world was close during those crucial events. Those visits of instruction and inspiration to the young Prophet, spoken of with sacred reticence by himself and his colleagues thereafter, show him to be a seer second to none in this dispensation. The words of William Taylor, brother to President John Taylor, pay a fitting tribute to this great gift of the Prophet:

“He seemed to be just as familiar with the Spirit World, and as well acquainted with the other side, as he was here.” – Robert J. Woodford

Ecclesiastes 9:5-6For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.  6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

One word:  necromancy.

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