The refiner's fire : the making of Mormon cosmology, 1644-1844

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The refiner's fire : the making of Mormon cosmology, 1644-1844

John L. Brooke

Cambridge University Press, 1996, c1994

  • : pbk

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Note

"First published 1994, first paperback edition 1996" -- T.p. verso

Descripiton based on: Reprinted 2001

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This 1995 book presents an alternative and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion, which proposes that the faithful will become gods. The book's central thesis is that the origins of Mormonism lie in the fusion of radical religion with magical ideas about recovering the divine powers of Adam lost in the fall from Paradise (ideas known as the hermetic philosophy) that occurred during the Reformation and the English Revolution. The book is organised around the two problems of demonstrating the survival of these ideas into the nineteenth century and of how they were manifested in Mormon doctrine. A final chapter outlines how Mormonism gradually has moved toward traditional Protestant Christianity since the 1850s. Besides religion, this book deals with magic, witchcraft, alchemy, Freemasonry, counterfeiting, and state-formation.

Table of Contents

  • List of illustrations
  • List of maps
  • Preface
  • Part I. A Prepared People: 1. Dreams of the primal Adam
  • 2. The true spiritual seed
  • 3. Something of our ancestors
  • Part II. Hermetic Purity and Hermetic Danger: 4. A Urim spiritual
  • 5. Alchymical experiments
  • 6. I was born in Sharon
  • Part III. The Mormon Dispensation: 7. Secret combinations and slippery treasures in the land of Zarahemla
  • 8. The mysteries defined
  • 9. Temples, wives, bogus-making and war
  • 10. The keys to the kingdom
  • 11. A tangle of strings and the kingdom of God
  • 12. Let mysteries alone
  • Appendix: the sectarian and hermetic circumstances of Mormon origins in Vermont and New York
  • Abbreviations used in notes
  • Notes
  • Index.

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