The Book of Mormon as Literary Alchemy

Speaker 1

Our next presenter is Bryce Haymond. Bryce is a designer, philosopher, and mystic. He received a BFA in Industrial Design and a minor in ballroom dance from Brigham Young University. He’s formerly the Product Development and Design Director at Handstands in Salt Lake City. Where he led the design, development, and manufacture of technology accessory consumer products. During last year’s 2017 MTA conference, he launched a new website, thymindoman. com. where he writes about perennial wisdom and the mystical relationship between the human mind and God. He and his wife, Raven, have four children and live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Welcome, Bryce.

Bryce Haymond

Good afternoon. I propose that there never were any authentic ancient gold plates. But in Joseph Smith’s persistent quest to find them, retrieve them, and translate this visionary golden treasure into objective reality, his work was like alchemy. The Book of Mormon was Joseph’s alchemical great work, or magnum opus, and through it he eventually realized that And through it, he eventually realized that the true gold was buried within himself all along. A deep inner spiritual wisdom and realization of humanity’s divine nature and eternal life. It was a transfiguration of human consciousness from an egoic perspective. to a perfected state of consciousness that has found eternal union in God.

Bryce Haymond

Transforming base elements into gold may seem quite archaic to us today. until we consider things like Bitcoin and other projects that transform matter and energy into value. We are still alchemists today in many ways. Former board member of the MTA James Carroll has noted in particular, quote, Religious transhumanists feel to me like the modern-day alchemists. Transhumanists are trying to perform the same sort of transmutation of physical things like abundance, artificial intelligence. to create an elixir of life that will help us have a longer life and live forever. And when you get the religious part in there, they put the two together very much like the alchemists.

Bryce Haymond

Alchemy is generally thought to be the ancient quest to turn base metals like lead or tin into gold in a process called transmutation. What is generally not known is that there was an an indispensable spiritual component to medieval alchemy. Alchemy is not merely an art or science to teach metallic transmutation, so much as a true and solid science that teaches how to know the center of all things, which in the divine language is called the spirit of life. In the end, the alchemists may have discovered that the work that they were doing, rather than creating gold, was transforming their own self. their consciousness and perception of reality. It seems to me that Joseph Smith was likewise participating in an alchemical work, which was both material and spiritual in nature. In this, Joseph may be considered the first Mormon transhumanist alchemist.

Bryce Haymond

Many Mormons think Joseph actually had ancient gold plates in his possession. Yet there have been volumes written on the topic of whether the object he had was really ancient or gold. There were witnesses who claimed they were, but there is still a significant amount of mystery surrounding them, particularly since they were nearly always covered or concealed. The plates seem to be caught in a kind of mystical realm of existence. This doesn’t mean that Joseph didn’t have anything like the plates in his possession. but I think it was a mixture of material and spiritual realities. I suggest that the plates Joseph saw in mystical vision were the only gold plates. and that the physical object that he had in his possession was a replica or representation of those visionary plates. Many think that such theories mean that Joseph was a liar. But I think that there may be good reasons to think that he was acting sincerely as an alchemical mystic and a genuine prophet.

Bryce Haymond

In 1829, Joseph’s uncle, Jesse Smith, wrote a letter, which references one that he received from Joseph a year earlier. Joseph writes that the angel of the Lord has revealed to him the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge, even divine revelation, which has lain in the bowels of the earth for thousands of years and is at last made known to him. This seems to directly parallel the ancient Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhist tradition of termate. also known as hidden treasure, and spiritual adepts known as tertons or treasure revealers, who would discover and translate these texts. It has been recognized that these termitexts were not literally hidden away in the ground, but were concealed in the mind of the guru. I suggest that this may have also been true of Joseph Smith.

Bryce Haymond

An account from Joseph’s mother Lucy notes that Joseph would often tell his family all about the contents of the Book of Mormon before he had ever obtained any plates. This was all revealed directly to his mind. I suggest that Joseph’s meaning of hidden treasure should be reinterpreted. Rather than being in the literal soil of the ground, this precious wisdom was buried spiritually or mystically. in the ground or earth of Joseph’s own being, deep within his consciousness.

Bryce Haymond

The Hebrew word for ground or earth is adamah. Which is where the biblical name Adam is derived. All human beings are created out of this ground or dust of the earth, which is also why in Hebrew, ben-Adam means human being. There are passages in the Book of Mormon which suggest this interpretation of wisdom being buried within. For example, Moroni says that the brother of Jared wrote of the visionary things which he had seen. And he was commanded to hide them up again in the earth. This knowledge is hid up because of unbelief, because of egoic hardness of heart and blindness of mind. This seems to suggest that the manifestations and revelations are not literally hidden down in the ground somewhere, but actually hidden within human nature.

Bryce Haymond

Several years after the publication of the Book of Mormon, Joseph dictated a revelation known as the Word of Wisdom, which was a kind of health code that promised a blessing for obedience to it. And they shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures. Here it seems evident that Joseph was not referring to people literally finding more gold plates in the ground somewhere. but rather that this wisdom was hidden as a treasure within the human being, and maintaining a healthy mind was essential to discovering it.

Bryce Haymond

Joseph himself may not have initially understood it this way, but thought that the revelations were coming from an external source and that this wisdom was literally hidden on a golden treasure in the ground nearby his home. His understanding was likely heavily influenced by his prior treasure-digging activities and his culture’s folk magic and hermetic traditions, which included alchemy. In pursuing the gold plates that he believed were a real external reality, Joseph may have initially thought that he would simply be given them by the angel of his visions, but later may have realized, like the alchemists, that he needed to do the work of bringing this hidden treasure into material existence.

Bryce Haymond

Ann Taves, a professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has written an excellent paper and more recently a book. introducing a theory of the materialization of the plates. She suggests that the discovery of the gold plates may not have been a literal discovery of gold plates in the ground of a nearby hill. but may have been a discovery of skilful seeing within Joseph, like an artist or designer.

Bryce Haymond

Taves notes a peculiar Peculiar, peculiar detail about the plates in DNC 17, verse 5. Speaking to the witnesses, God says, And ye shall testify that you have seen the plates, even as my servant Joseph Smith Jr. has seen them. For it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith. If Joseph could not see the plates except by the power of God and with faith, then what was it that he had in his material possession?

Bryce Haymond

After several years of visits to the nearby Hill Kimora in an attempt to get the plates, Joseph may have decided that he needed to change his approach. Taves notes: Joseph reported to his anxious parents that he had just received the severest chastisement. The angel told him that he had been negligent and that the time had now come when the record should be brought forth. But, Father, give yourself no uneasiness as to this reprimand. I know what course I am to pursue, and all will be well.

Bryce Haymond

It seems that if the plates had been a real tangible metal plate simply located in a stone box in the hill, then it would not have been a diff difficult task for Joseph to pick them up from out of the box and carry them home. Taves suggests that the this vision convinced Joseph that he had to take an active role in the materialization of the plates. Taves hypothesizes that Joseph made a representation of the plates out of tin or lead, which are incidentally some of the very same base materials the alchemists used. Having faith that they would become the sacred reality the Smith family believed them to be. Joseph may have believed that his making the plates in this way was the only way to manifest them in material objective reality. As Taves notes, co-creating the reality of the plates or a materialization of the sacred.

Bryce Haymond

Taves compares this with the story of the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon, who prepared 16 stones which he molten from a rock. and then asked the Lord to touch them and cause them to shine in darkness. Similarly, Joseph may have felt that he had to exercise faith and prepare his own homemade tin plates which he could then take to the hill Kimorah and ask the angel to transform them into the gold plates of his visions. This may be what Joseph did on that September night in 1827. 27 Traveling to the Hill with his ten plates and returning home, believing that the plates in his possession were now, in fact, the real ancient gold plates he had previously seen only in vision.

Bryce Haymond

Taves notes how this change of substance, like the Catholic Eucharist, may have only been visible to those who believed. Like the Eucharist, Smith didn’t claim that the plates he had were a representation of ancient gold plates. He claimed that they really were those plates. Taves writes, In much the way that Jesus is said to have held up human-made bread and said to his disciples, This is my body, Joseph Smith may have made plates, placed them in a box and said to his family, These are the gold plates.

Bryce Haymond

But merely having what he thought were the gold plates was not the end of this alchemy. It was a seven-year laborious process that ended up not with a set of real gold plates, but with a book. A real tangible spiritual wisdom text that any person could easily see, handle, acquire, and read. As the SES and philosopher William H. Gass once wrote, the true alchemists do not change lead into gold. They changed the world into words.

Bryce Haymond

In medieval alchemy, there was a recognized difference between two types of alchemists: puffers and true alchemists, as discussed by James Carroll in a lecture on alchemy. Quote, a puffer is someone who is interested in producing gold. He wants to get rich. But for the true alchemists, it was a spiritual quest, the refinement of the soul produced by the process, transformed you, not metals. It turns you into the sort of person who no longer desired wealth or fame or fortune. <unk> I think we can see this in Joseph Smith.

Bryce Haymond

In Lucy Smith’s autobiography, Before He Had Any Plates, we read that Joseph seemed to be concerned that people would want to get them from him because of their gold value. And in Joseph’s 1838 account of the visions of Moroni, we see the temptation again. The angel added a caution to me telling me that Satan would try to tempt me in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my father’s family to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich. I think we see the sentiment reflected again in the Book of Mormon text, which may be Joseph’s own intuitions, his conscious shift from materialistic to spiritual goals. And I am the same who hideth up this record unto the Lord. The plates thereof are of no worth, because of the commandment of the Lord. For he truly saith that no one shall have them to get gain. But the record thereof is of great worth, and whoso shall bring it to light, him will the Lord bless.

Bryce Haymond

Once Joseph’s alchemical great work, or magnum opus, of the translation, was finished he may have realized he had no need for the physical object of the plates any more, and so he discarded whatever object that was. It was indeed worthless. What mattered was what he had discovered within his mind and heart and translated as the text of the Book of Mormon. This was the true gold. Seek not for riches, but for wisdom. And behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.

Bryce Haymond

There are a number of stories of personal transformation in the text of the Book of Mormon. I think these are reflections of Joseph’s own spiritual transformation from a treasure-seeking youth to one who found spiritual gold within himself. even eternal life. During the translation, Joseph seems to have realized his eternal life, as recorded in the Doctrine of Covenants. And that you be firm in keeping the commandments wherewith I have commanded you. And if you do this, behold, I grant unto you eternal life, even if you should be slain.

Bryce Haymond

The end of the alchemist’s great work was known as the Philosopher’s Stone. They thought that they would arrive at a final substance that was capable of performing transmutation, a stone of some sort. That was the foundation of perfection, a final enlightenment. Through the processes of the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph may have found that the transmutation That transmuting his tin plates into real gold was not the final objective, but that he had found and translated a source of wisdom and knowledge deep within his mind and soul. He had uncovered a hidden treasure within himself. And this discovery was eternal life, the alchemical philosopher’s stone.

Bryce Haymond

This was the rock of Peter. It was the cornerstone of Christ. It was the rough stone rolling of Joseph Smith. It was the sixteen stones of the brother of Jared that were shining out of darkness into light. It was the white stone that is given to all those who overcome. It was gazalem, the seer stone, that Joseph used to transfigure his consciousness to perceive this wisdom deep within himself. It was the deepest being of the human individual and of collective humanity that is the rock upon which all of life and creation is built.

Bryce Haymond

As I mentioned earlier, all of humanity is made up of another great rock, this ground, this earth, this atom, which is this planet Earth. Which is made up of the mass energy of the cosmos. In the highest spiritual perception, one comes to see the self as the Auroburos, that one is the all. We are the earth and the cosmos. We are one in God that He’s emerged from the dust of this earth and become living souls. We are the cosmos becoming aware and conscious of itself. This is known by Christians as Christ, by Buddhists as Buddha nature, by Hindus as Atman. Similar symbols are found in many of the world’s religions and spiritual traditions.

Bryce Haymond

The real value of the visionary gold plates, I perceive, was the wisdom that Joseph found deep within his mind and consciousness. This wisdom existed within Joseph. in the deepest part of his own being that was at one in divine consciousness, at one in God. He reified his visions into material reality not through actually transmuting, 10 into real gold plates, but through the translation of this perennial wisdom into the text of the Book of Mormon. In that alchemical process Joseph discovered that humanity and life itself are the true gold, the true riches. And the realization and embodiment of these in their purity is the goal of existence, even the philosopher’s stone.

Bryce Haymond

As religious transhumanists, we are striving to transmute our deepest visions into new objective material realities, new technologies that benefit human society, including transforming and exalting Human beings and our consciousness, and in doing so, we are doing alchemy, which is both material and spiritual. And just like alchemists such as Joseph Smith, this may not result in the transmutations we thought we were striving for, but in the process it may transfigure our perception of ourselves and of all of humanity.

Bryce Haymond

Thank you. We have a couple of minutes if there’s any questions.

Speaker 3

Is it also your view that the storyline of the book of Mormon, Dehai, Devi, and so that those characters did not live, or that they did, but they never The Book of Mormon please.

Bryce Haymond

My view is that the Book of Mormon is a great allegory. It’s a great narrative. And I believe that it was Joseph’s Deeper consciousness that created this allegory as representative of his own life and his own experiences and his own consciousness and his own relationships with people and experiences. I don’t think it’s an actual depiction of historical reality, but of Joseph’s own experience of life.

Speaker 3

I’m curious about where you fit into this approach, the idea that Joseph himself did not see this work as complete. with a large portion of the plates remaining untranslated.

Bryce Haymond

Yeah. The question is about the sealed portion of the plates, that the work was incomplete. And I actually have a section about that in the longer written version of this paper that’s on my website. The idea of a sealed section of the plates, I think, is related to the alchemical idea of the Hermetic seal. And that idea is related to the notion that truth is Is always it’s as if it was in a sealed book, one that we cannot read directly. That it takes a much deeper spiritual perception to be able to read and know and understand that truth. And I think that’s the connection to the sealed portion of the plates. Yeah. Which one? Down here first and then up there? Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

Speaker 3

A couple months ago, your church historians about six months ago answered the question, is there a spoken guy? And some place in in the uh in the library they have heard about and I trust this guy said that not that I know of. And and then someone asked in the crowd, Well, what most impressed you in the uh the startup? Well, to be honest, it was the first attempt Joseph made to write down his issue. The page was full of strikeouts. He couldn’t spell a word. He couldn’t put a sentence together. He said, that to me is the most inspiring. Pieces like I’ve also seen the actual written text of the college. How do you work that up? Channeling, decent grammar. I’m not saying it’s a programme.

Bryce Haymond

Yeah, the questions about how Joseph would be very bad at writing his own history, his grammar and everything is really terrible. But then the Book of Mormon seems to be this perfect Manuscript. I think that when people enter into a much more meditative state of consciousness, at very deep Unity of consciousness that such creative ability naturally is produced. that these abilities emerge naturally out of our person, out of our consciousness, without our own personal Energies or conscious doing, they come from a much deeper place, and I think Joseph was able to tap into that creative wisdom that’s much deeper in consciousness. It just flowed out of him. But in his normal everyday life, trying to write his history, he was writing from a much different state of consciousness, where all those errors and the difficulty occur. So I don’t know if that helps.

Speaker 5

Thank you.