Part 3 of What Can We Learn from Visions of Glory On verifying revelation, guardrails, and personal accountability.
The Church has no doctrine for the fate of stillborn children. Erin Stiles, whose Episcopalian upbringing in northern Utah inspired a book, The Devil Sat on My Bed (2025), about the Mormon spirit world, recorded this interview with a Latter-day Saint:
I’ve not had personal experience with this, but I’ve heard umpteen stories—[is when] somebody who had a stillbirth-born baby… where those kind of transitions are, or what they perceive as pre-life to post-life [transitions], then they’ll say they felt something or they saw something.[1]
I can vouch for this, having lost such a child myself. I’ve known Latter-day Saints who have experiences with stillborn children that—in the absence of correlated doctrine—manifest themselves in plausible but, inevitably, contradictory ways.
Part 1 of this series introduced the strange yet successful Mormon book about the spirit world, Visions of Glory, which believers and critics called dangerous. Part 2 tracked some of its Mormon ancestry.
This last post asks an impossible question: Can we verify the authenticity of revelation?
I mention stillbirth, because it illustrates how some of our deepest spiritual questions remain suspended in doctrinal limbo where our imaginations alchemize with spiritual yearnings: Do stillborn souls remain in preexistence, or are they whisked off to paradise? Do promptings always originate with the Holy Ghost, or can the deceased also speak?[2]
In 1831, Joseph Smith outlined a fundamental constraint on revelation:
And this ye shall know… there is none other appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until [Joseph] be taken, if he abide in me.
— D&C 43:3
Here, God appoints one person within the Church to receive revelation on behalf of the whole. Subsequent church leaders went further: God won’t inspire you to violate another person’s “agency”; He won’t sanction departures from church regulations; and if revelations contradict, trust what is channeled through living leaders.
The model is conceptually reasonable and guards the institution from chaos and upstarts. The problem is it’s a drag for individuals: formulaic reasoning promotes homogenous ideas of who can receive revelation, how it arrives, and what questions it answers.
Furthermore, verifying revelation is hard for leaders too.
Joseph, for his part, feared deceptive spirts. One of his first revelations addressed four early followers, commanding the group to travel north to Kingston to sell the Book of Mormon’s copyright. Unfortunately, copyright law was unenforceable in Canada in 1830. The men returned empty-handed, prompting them to ask, “how it was that [Joseph] had received a revelation from the Lord… and sell the copy-right, and the brethren utterly failed in their undertaking.” According to David Whitmer, Joseph replied: “some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.”[3]
Most Latter-day Saints interviewed by Stiles in Utah were familiar with Joseph’s unusual method for discerning spirits, recorded in D&C 129, and further explained by Willard Richards:
If David Patten [a deceased Mormon apostle, killed in 1838] or the Devil came, how would you determine [Patten from the Devil]? Should you take hold of his hand, you would not feel it. If it were a false administration, he would not do it. [A] true spirit will not give his hand. The Devil will.
None of Stiles’ interviewees had an opportunity to test this.
The early Saints celebrated the return of spiritual gifts. Discerning them from false spirits, however, was no easier then than now. Helen Mar Kimball, polygamous wife to Joseph Smith, recorded one of the most head-scratching spirit encounters in Mormon history:
In June 1847, a year after being expelled from Nauvoo, a group of women gathered at Kimball’s mother’s home for a “blessing meeting”. These meetings were essential supports to Mormon women drawn to charismatic spirituality during the punishing years in Winter Quarters. There they spoke in tongues, prophesied, and blessed each other.
Kimball was often sick as a young adult, and she—among ten or so other women anticipating a special outpouring—believed she would be healed.
But no sooner had we begun to offer up our united prayers than the devil commenced his operations on the three little ones that were there…
One of the “three little ones” was Sarah Ann Whitney’s baby son, David. Together the women “rebuked [the devil] by the power of the priesthood”, but the seizures returned. Again they rebuked the spirits; again the children recommenced convulsing. This pattern continued throughout the day until Kimball’s story took a baffling turn: the women concluded God required a sacrifice:
… [the] wrestle continued between the two powers, each seeking the supremacy, till finally we became satisfied that we would have to part with one of those little ones before we could obtain the coveted blessing…
Seeking advice, the women summoned Sarah Ann’s father, Bishop Newel Whitney. Whitney had confessed concerns about the women’s meetings, but upon entering the house he was “filled with the Holy Spirit”, and said:
… that we were nearer obtaining what we had sought for, and the Lord was nearer than we had any idea of, and that our desires would have been realized had we given up one of those children.
Naturally, they demurred. Disappointed by the outcome, Kimball went to bed, her “faith considerably shaken.” The next morning, Persis Young, overcome and shaking with the Spirit, visited Kimball, “rebuked [her] weakness”, and healed her. Sadly, David—Bishop Whitney’s grandson—fell ill and perished two months later.[4]
Kimball’s story is especially disturbing, and it’s important to note that she recorded it long after the events. But her telling is indicative of how some enthusiastic Saints feel about the spirit world and the spiritual trials a person must overcome:
The struggles that we had with evil spirits were something similar to what the Prophet Joseph Smith experienced in Far West, Missouri. He said the devil contended with him face to face…
Most Latter-day Saints are acquainted with the supernatural, and some of it is strange and personal. Eugene England tells how he healed his Chevrolet by the laying on of hands. If we can heal oxen, why not cars?
So, how can we know what is real? I don’t think we can, unfortunately—not absolutely, at least.
For believers, it’s comical to imagine putting revelation under a microscope—as if God can be found without devotion! Visions of Glory offered a high-res vision of the spirit world many Latter-day Saints crave. For them, adhering to the spiritual formulas ignores powerful ideas taught by the Restoration.
I have a modest proposal, therefore, to bridge messy manifestations with the Church’s need for order, and I’m grateful to Times & Seasons commenter bhbardo who hinted at the solution in part 2:
[Revelation] may feel so real that we assume it must be universal and want to proclaim it far and wide, when really it’s tailored to us, to help us learn our next line or precept.
Orthodox believers require guideposts and strong chains of authority to verify revelation, and that’s fine. This solution, however, diverts attention away from authenticity—e.g. What does revelation say about reality?—towards what we do with revelation. In other words: How did it change me?
Let me illustrate with one last story: I once served as a ward missionary in a poor neighborhood. My wife and I befriended a couple in their late middle ages; their lives were marked by financial disruption and displacement. Then the husband died of a heart attack.
After the funeral, I visited his wife who said that during the services a white unmarked tow truck pulled up to her house. (Her husband had been an ambulance driver.) The tow truck glittered pure white. It sat a while, and a few minutes later, it was gone—it had taken her husband home.
That changed me.
I’ve watched a few Latter-day Saints make puzzling, sometimes self-sabotaging, life choices based on these promptings. I’ve also seen promptings improve lives immeasurably.
Because revelation is inherently unverifiable (to others and ourselves), my suggestion is to first, assume responsibility for our actions, inspired or not. Thom Harrison has to live with the impact he made on other visionaries who ultimately became criminals; he can’t blame God for his book. (Perhaps this is why it’s usually wise to keep revelation to ourselves.)
Finally, revelation must be weighed against right and wrong. Mormons have an interesting history with antinomianism, but while revelation does not always harmonize with reason, in order for it to be true (pure), it must also be good. When these two elements work in tandem, we’re witnessing a bit of divinity in our lives.
- Stiles, The Devil Sat on My Bed, 27.
- Stiles, The Devil Sat on My Bed, 54.
- Whitmer, Address to All Believers in Christ, 31.
- Scenes and Incidents at Winter Quarters, Dec. 15, 1885. See also Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 358.
Comments
6 responses to “What We Can Learn from Visions of Glory, Part 3”
The Lord communicates with us in ways that will make sense to us, so it fits that he might send a glittering tow truck to a modern member where he would have sent a chariot of fire to an ancient Israelite. On the other hand, I suspect the reason we hear of fewer incidents like that today is that so many of us are comfortable with statements like my previous sentence. What makes sense to us is abstractions, and the Lord communicates with us accordingly. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
“…formulaic reasoning promotes homogenous ideas of who can receive revelation, how it arrives, and what questions it answers.”
True, but unnecessarily. There are rules for personal revelation, but they proscribe certain things (mostly what we do with it) rather than limiting the scope of it. We fall short of what we could be receiving by personal revelation–and that was an authoritative message from President Nelson.
I like your solution of focusing less on trying to authenticate personal revelation and more on making sure it changes us in good ways. That fits with Moroni 7.
“Finally, revelation must be weighed against right and wrong.”
Yes. I came away from my reading this week firmly convinced that the story of Abraham and Isaac is NOT telling us to ignore right and wrong when we think we have received revelation. (See my comment on the Akedah post if you really want to know my reasoning.) The story of Nephi and Laban can still be abused, but note that the Lord took the time to convince Nephi that what he was being asked to do was right and did not expect him to act until he was.
But what are we supposed to do when our personal revolution says the prophet is wrong? I live through the 1978 change in doctrine, so maybe that will work as an example. I felt it was wrong to ban anyone from being sealed as a family because of race. As a woman who didn’t hold the priesthood anyway, I felt it was wrong to not allow blacks the priesthood, but mainly because of the sealing issue. I still feel it is wrong that women do not have priesthood, because all the evidence says that Joseph Smith was giving women the priesthood. The word “ordain” was even used with Emma when she was given priesthood power. But, there were people going around actively speaking out against church doctrine before the change was made. It is just possible that if they had not been agitating the change would not have happened. There are also lots of cases where someone just did what they were inspired to do, and then the church adopted the idea. Primary and young women’s programs are two examples. The Word of Wisdom is another bottom up revelation. Your whole, “the prophet is the only one who can get revelation for the church” is historically untrue. What about the blacks and priesthood doctrine? Was Brigham Young just plain wrong, or does God change his mind between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and then change his mind again in 1978? Your method of when”inspiration” is from God assumes prophetic infallibility, which is not doctrine. Maybe the prophet is the only one who can “act” on inspiration for the whole church, because of his position and authority. Which is exactly what the Catholic Church has. So, what’s the difference between us and the Catholics?
So, I think your key to recognizing “real” revelation as based on position and authority is bogus. I think it should be only based on what is moral and logical and good. Thus Nephi was wrong to commit murder. That didn’t come from God. But came from Nephi and necessity. Nephi just didn’t see any other way, so he convinced himself it was “inspiration from God. Nephi seems to have spent the rest of his life haunted by guilt, so there’s that. And, his nation did dwindle in unbelief. So, his committing murder failed anyway.
Show me one good example where God told someone to do something immoral and it turned out all right, because in my book, both Nephi and Abraham made a mistake.
Anna, some good news: Abraham did not make a mistake. It says right there in Genesis that he was commanded by God, and we have clarifications in the New Testament that it was a trial of his faith and an example of faith and works acting together. And the command to slay Laban likewise came from God, and there’s no evidence that Nephi was haunted by it afterwards. The scriptures are a lot clearer if you don’t ignore what they actually say.
Appreciate your comments RLD, especially your distinction about what we do with revelation versus how it’s received—we don’t usually talk about it that way, and it’d be interesting if we did.
Anna, thanks for engaging. The post, however, was not a promotion of authority as a benchmark for revelation—indeed, I was hoping to demonstrate that revelation often defies expectations. As you point out, women and the priesthood is great example. In the same periodical in which Helen Mar told the story used in the post, she also said:
> …and every time the evil spirits were rebuked by the power of the priesthood, which had been conferred upon us in the house of God in connection with our husbands.
In this case, Helen explicitly connects her use of priesthood power to temple ordinances. You also mentioned the race ban, and I agree that’s an excellent example of Church leaders wrestling with what constitutes revelation.
Jonathan, I agree Nephi doesn’t cite guilt for killing Laban, but if scripture were unidimensional, and not open for interpretation, I don’t believe the story of Abraham and Isaac—or Nephi’s—would be half as powerful, and therefore I wouldn’t shut alternative readings down quickly. By the way, thank you for letting me post these, it’s been fun!
Kendall, thanks for this series of posts and for engaging in conversation here. Alternative readings are super fun and interesting – I’ve got more than a few of my own. But speculative alternative readings make for crummy evidence in support of anything else, which is just the nature of speculative alternative readings.
Perhaps, if we collectively could keep a humble perspective, and treat visions as a form of symbolic, reflective or parabolic learning, rather than as a literal or even partially-literal transcription of the future, then it could benefit us to share them widely. We could compare and contrast and perhaps gain greater light. At the least we would have uniting insights, windows into each others’ souls.
But if we’re sharing for attention or gain, or if we’re sharing with those with whom we don’t have a close personal connection, then we’re losing 99% of that potential value.
Is a vision from God, or from the deep folds of our brains and the contours of our experiences? That distinction doesn’t matter much if our primary goal is humility, learning and love.
Alternately, the corpus of literature, the body of the Word, is but a collection of visions.