"Transfiguration" of Brigham Young

Honestly, mackay11, as a history teacher and someone who knows about Brother Van Wagoner’s situation, I had a hard time re-reading that and giving it solid credit as being objective. There is a lot of good information in it, but there also is way too much in it that shows why Brother Van Wagoner eventually was excommunicated. There are so many assertions that rest on a pre-existing interpretation of events, and every one of them is anti-Brigham Young (and every other member of the Quorum of the Twelve at the time who accepted him as the new leader) – and the actual events of the succession and speech he gives aren’t nearly as damning as he portrays them to be, without his personal allegation that are interspersed throughout it. There actually are plenty of personal accounts that describe a transfiguration of some sort – way too many to dismiss the whole thing as having been made up from nothing by Pres. Young and the Twelve. Embellished with an aura of universality, absolutely; completely fabricated, absolutely not. Casting it all as an intentional fraud just doesn’t match the totality of the record, imo – even if I don’t accept a literal transfiguration as having occurred.

Succession was a very messy thing back then, and I think this description, by painting everything in terms of a conniving Brigham Young and a near-martyr Sydney Rigdon, just doesn’t do it justice. Also, fwiw, I have read Rigdon’s words in this piece and in other places, and the future of the Church under him would have been every bit as bad, if not worse, than it was under Young. His rhetoric really would have scared me if I had been there.

Finally, fwiw, one of the lines that bothers me the most in his piece is the assertion that the membership were mindless sheep who simply wanted to be told what to do and, therefore, followed Brigham. Every single person who spoke and wanted to lead the Church after Joseph’s death told the membership, in a very real way, what that person believed they should do. Labeling only one part of the group as Van Wagoner did was a classless, condescending way to stereotype those who voted for Brigham and praise those who broke away and followed Rigdon, Emma and others – and, interestingly, it is the only way he could then dismiss the accounts that do exist of the “transformation” some people believed they experienced.

In saying all of that, I’m not saying everything occurred in the way we have it in the published narratives from the Church. We all know the myth-making that happened in multiple cases – myth-making that always occurs at the beginning of any organization. What I’m saying is that this piece is just as slanted as anything it attacks, and the bias is quite clear throughout it.

Oh, and I forgot completely to mention that D. Michael Quinn disagreed vehemently with Brother Van Wagoner about this assertion – and Brother Quinn isn’t exactly an apologist.

Sort of goes like this. Brigham gave a good speech and gets some people to follow him. Years latter in an attempt to justify their decision their someone fabricates this story. They may have even convinced themselves it was true. Story gets repeated a few times, then a few others that were there say yea I remember that happening. Next thing you know you have people who were not even there claiming they saw it. All of them actually believe it to some degree.

Point is the whole story was just a tall tale that got out of control. There are no contemporary journal entries, newspaper articles or anything else describing anything close to this event. It all appears latter in journals.

This is the thing religion does. It tells tall tales of miraculous events to inspire you to believe. God stopped the hurricane, Lazuras was raised from the dead, Brigham turned into Joseph. It is all the same. Stories retold over and over to perpetuate a belief.

How many times have you seen and heard someone in your ward or stake using the same words, intonation, and mannerisms as a general authority? In my previous unit there was someone very good at it.

Another explanation is that people sincerely recounted what they experienced when they were asked about it and thought to make a record of those experiences, with some embellishments that reflected common language of the time and the alterations that naturally come with extended passing of time.

There is plenty of evidence the accounts weren’t fabricated by everyone who recorded them or the result of nothing more than collective imagination. There were lots of people who recorded, at the time, Brigham sounding like Joseph, while others said they believed they had experienced Joseph’s calling being exhibited through Brigham. The sketchy stuff are claims that many people saw Joseph as Brigham spoke – but even that morphing is understandable given the way the initial accounts were worded.

It’s really easy to accept either extreme: a literal, visual, collective transformation vs. a complete fabrication. Total fabrication just doesn’t describe what I see. As often is the case, the totality of the evidence tells me the truth was somewhere between those extremes.

Interestingly, responses here show very well the concept that we don’t believe what we see but rather see what we believe. I tend to see things as charitably as possible, with lots of nuance and avoiding extremes. Cadence tends to see everything in clear, unambiguous terms – generally critically and negatively. Each of those views is fine and honest for us individually, but neither is binding on anyone else – and neither is provable, when it comes right down to it. If two people like Van Wagoner and Quinn can research it so thoroughly and reach such different conclusions, it’s not surprising we here reach different conclusions, as well.

I have always tried to see “the other hand” and give people, even in history, the benefit of the doubt.

This is from wikipedia:

Many of Young’s followers would later reminisce that while Young spoke he looked and sounded similar to Joseph Smith, which they attributed to the power of God.[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Jorgensen establishes 101 written testimonies of people who say a transformation or spiritual manifestation occurred.[43] However, Jorgensen concedes, “why were none of the accounts that record the miracle written on the day of the manifestation or shortly thereafter? It is a question that unfortunately cannot be answered definitively.”[44] Van Wagoner shows there are no known contemporary records of “an explicit transfiguration, a physical metamorphosis of Brigham Young into the form and voice of Joseph Smith.”[45] Van Wagoner writes, “there is not a shred of irrefutable contemporary evidence to support the occurrence of a mystical event either in the morning or afternoon gatherings of that day.” The earliest reference provided by Quinn is the 15 November 1844 Henry and Catharine Brooke statement referring generally to Young bearing the greatest resemblance to Smith.[46] Quinn is not known to disagree with Van Wagoner’s clarification of the record, though he has labeled it a “skeptical view.”[47]

This from Dan Peterson:

Many modern members of the church are aware of the story that Brigham Young was somehow “transfigured” as he spoke to the Saints on that occasion. His appearance was transformed, according to the story, so that audience members were startled to see, as they thought, Joseph Smith himself standing where Brigham stood.

It’s even said that the leader of the Twelve sounded exactly like the martyred Prophet, right down to the hissing “s” resulting from Joseph’s broken tooth, incurred during an assault by a mob. In this event, we’re told, the mantle of Joseph plainly and unambiguously fell upon Brigham, leaving no doubt about who was to lead the church.

Unfortunately, historians have located not a single source, thus far, that mentions this important manifestation within days or even weeks of its alleged occurrence. Many critics and skeptics, accordingly, conclude nothing actually happened, that it’s essentially faith-promoting fiction and, even, evidence of the church’s intentional falsification of its own history.

But such an easy dismissal simply doesn’t accord with the known facts.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865585792/Event-convinced-Saints-of-Brigham-Youngs-mantle.html

Dan doesn’t offer any evidence to show we shouldn’t dismiss it. Instead he recommends the Jorgensen article (also mentioned in the wiki article). It’s a fairly short article (with a very long appendiz, here are a few paragraphs

“Most Mormon historians acknowledge the mantle story agreeing that something important happened in august 1844. For example Ronald K Esplin states “Though there is no contemporary diary account, the number of later retellings, many in remarkable detail, argues for the reality of some such experience.” Leonard J Arrington notes that an important event “took place” but observes that there may be psychological explanations for the phenomenon and reserves judgment regarding whether a miraculous transfiguration occurred. Others, however, have concluded that it is unlikely that a miraculous spiritual manifestation took place. Richard S. Van Wagoner for instance, writes “When 8 August 1844 is stripped of emotional overlay there is not a shred of irrefutable contemporary evidence to support the occurrence of a mystical event.” Van Wagoner concludes that a more likely scenario was that it was the force of Young’s commanding presence his well-timed arrival at the morning meeting, and perhaps a bit of theatrical mimicry, that swayed the crowd.

In order to enable readers to examine the evidence underlying these interpretations for themselves, numerous accounts of the mantle experience have been compiled in appendixes I and II of this article the evidence presented in these accounts demonstrates that many people testified powerfully that they had received a convincing sensory or spiritual witness of the mantle of the prophet Joseph falling on Brigham Young.

…however for one hundred and fifty years scholars have searched for a witness account written on the same day as the mantle experience if the experience was so intense and life changing for followers of the Prophet Joseph why were none of the accounts that record the miracle written on the day of the manifestation or shortly thereafter it is a question that unfortunately cannot be answered definitively.”

https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFLibrary/36.4JorgensenMantle-78ad9ce7-65da-496c-996a-493c51928471.pdf

Ray, as a historian, aren’t contemporaneous sources more reliable? All of them describe nothing unusual. It took 6 years before anyone mentions the ‘transfiguration.’ I’m not claiming it’s a big conspiracy, but collective memory can change over time to the point where everyone remembers things that didn’t happen or that they didn’t see. Some of the accounts of the transfiguration are even given by people who weren’t there.

The problem is, this story and other Mormon myths get perpetuated in the manuals. I taught the D&C in primary for the 11 year old class this year. It was so hard and got so frustrating to teach the lessons while having my personal integrity intact. I tried to skip these kinds of stories and teach actual gospel principles instead of “history”, but I had a very young team teacher who seemed to highlight them. We’ve seen that the church has quietly been adding some facts to its website and the Joseph Smith Papers website, but if those don’t get into the manuals, it wont matter. It will take this youngest generation to forget or not pass on these stories if they are ever going to die off and be replaced with facts.

I am not saying it was a big conspiracy I do not believe in conspiracies as an explanation for most things. It is just that people tell stories and those stories get regurgitated and embellished. Think Paul Dunn.

I do think that the lack of contemporary accounts is telling. If it did happen as portrayed it would have been a defining moment at the time and eliminated more completely those opposing Brigham

Ray is correct I do not ascribe to nuance. Things like this either happened or they did not. It is a factual story or it is not. So taking the scientific approach I do not put stock in things that can not be replicated. I guess that makes me a religious skeptic. I do not think that is negative as Ray says but realistic.

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the whole idea that Brigham Young transformed into joseph Smith seems like Bologna to me. It’s amazing the lengthss that people will go to in order to confirm something they want to believe. I think everyone like Brigham Young wanted him to be the leader so they invented the story to make a proPhet status legitimate.