Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:13] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It's February 4, 2022 and we are so excited for today's episode. We have a double header. We're doing two episodes today, one later with Dr. Simon Southerton about the creation. I'm excited to announce that I will just say next weekend as a brief 10 second announcement. Next weekend there will be Thrive St. George. So if any of you want to hang out with Natasha Helfer and David Bachavoy and myself and Jesse Funk and many other super cool people who are dedicated to healing and growth within the post Mormon community, go to thrivebeyondreligion.com and you can register for Thrive St.

John Dehlin [00:00:59] George next weekend, which will be February, I guess 11th, 12th and 13th. Maybe even Bill Real will make a special appearance. All right, without any further ado, I am so thrilled to be covering this amazing book today on Mormon Stories podcast. The book is called the Glass Looker Collected Tales of Joseph Smith, illustrated by Mark Elwood. It's a graphic novel.

Introducing The Glass Looker Graphic Novel

John Dehlin [00:01:26] The back, the back part of the book says the Glass Looker follows an ordinary American farm boy named Joseph Smith who discovers he possesses the magical ability for seeing in stones. The glass liquor delivers the origin story of the American boy prophet through the larger than life accounts of Joseph, his family, neighbors and enemies. And if you just thumb through this amazing book, just the illustrations, the quality of this book, and for me, most importantly, the history are just incredibly noteworthy and even historic. So that's what we're going to be covering today and we are so thrilled to have with us on the podcast not only Mark Elwood, but also his partner or wife.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] I'm not sure, Aaron, how you like to be described, but Aaron is joining Mark and Aaron is an important partner in this entire project. Welcome, Mark and Aaron Elwood to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Mark Elwood [00:02:27] Well, thank you very much, John. We're very excited to be here.

Erin Elwood [00:02:30] We are.

Mark Elwood [00:02:33] So you've probably heard a lot of stories about Joseph Smith over the years and we're hoping that we can share this in a new way and hopefully you'll get a new appreciation for some of the stories surrounding Joseph Smith's treasure digging. We most of all though, it's just for fun. Like we love this stuff. We think these stories can be fascinating and humorous and eye opening at times.

John Dehlin [00:03:00] I love it. I love it. So. So, Mark, I don't know if you and Aaron each want to kind of introduce yourselves just a tiny bit. Whatever you want to say or not say, about your biographies. Should we start there?

Mark Elwood [00:03:12] Yeah, let's do that, actually, on the next slide. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] Oh, okay. Bring the slides up.

Mark Elwood [00:03:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:18] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:03:18] If you don't mind.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] Okay.

Erin Elwood [00:03:19] There we go, nerds. And we have a slide deck.

John Dehlin [00:03:23] There we go. There's the slide. So for those who want to join us, I should say this, for those who are just listening to the podcast, you will get so much more out of today's episode if you open up Facebook or open up YouTube and follow it, because we're going to have some amazing illustrations, even a map that shows a bunch of historic treasure digs. Just really important stuff. So please follow us visually if you can. Okay, Mark.

Guests' Backgrounds and Mormon Credentials

Mark Elwood [00:03:50] All right, well, so there's a picture of us looking silly wearing his historic clothing. We're big history nerds. But I guess let's start at my Mormon street cred. I guess I was, you know, raised in the church, Mormon missionary. Did the Tennessee Knoxville mission. Actually met Aaron on my mission. And that's a story in itself, but we will not tell that today. And let's see, we got married in 2004 and then ended up leaving the church in 2011. It was just time for us to leave. And I don't know, you can probably expound on that, Aaron, but, I mean,

Erin Elwood [00:04:30] we hadn't read anything anti. Hadn't read any history. We just. We live in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a very diverse place. It was easy to step away, and. And we just had it at that time, we thought a very healthy break with the church, where it was like, it's not working for us, but if it works for you, great. We're happy for you, and we're going to figure out what works for us. But then in. When was that? 2015. The Seer Stone picture came out.

Mark Elwood [00:04:55] Yeah. And it kind of, like, reignited our interest in Mormonism, to be honest. Like, that came out, and I hadn't ever really heard of that. And then from there, you know, I have a picture of Bushman. And was it.

John Dehlin [00:05:09] Can I ask you guys just for half of our viewers and listeners have never been Mormon, it turns out, and then a lot are just new to their faith crisis. So do you want to talk about why. Why it was even newsworthy that there was a Seer Stone and why it even required a news story or an announcement?

Mark Elwood [00:05:30] Sure. I think, for me, anyway, just. It wasn't what I was teaching people on my mission. Right. So I was. It made me say, wait a second. This isn't exactly what I was told.

John Dehlin [00:05:43] And what was the Announcement for those who didn't even. Don't even know what announcement you're talking about.

Mark Elwood [00:05:48] So they announced that instead of, you know, the typical depiction of Joseph translating an old document or, you know, the gold plates, using, you know, studying it, looking at it, understanding it, using the Urim and Thummim, which I know is another device, but it is that he instead used the Seer Stone, which is the same stone he was using for treasure digging. So it kind of confirmed treasure digging as well, you know, and.

Erin Elwood [00:06:14] But they also released a picture of the Seer Stone, which was really the big thing, because if you had been paying attention, you could have known about the Seer Stone prior, but no one had ever seen what it looked like before that.

Mark Elwood [00:06:24] Yeah, it made it very real. Like, suddenly this image made it super tangible, that, hey, the treasure digs are real. And there's more to this story here. So.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] So when that stuff came out, it was where in your. In your journey?

Erin Elwood [00:06:38] Well, so we left in 2011. So we were out and we were out, out. And I think our son had been born. Yeah, our son had been born. And we chosen not to bless him. And that was kind of a decision, you know, we made. And then.

Mark Elwood [00:06:52] Well, we did have him blessed, but not at the church and stuff. We let our dad, my dad do, like a blessing. Kind of just a family blessing.

Erin Elwood [00:06:59] A family blessing at the house, but not for the church records. Yeah, but so that. Yeah, so the Seer Stone kind of reignited something that was kind of dormant curiosity. Yeah. In us. And so we love history, but for some reason we'd never read Mormon history. And so that started that journey. So to the next slide, John, I can advance it.

John Dehlin [00:07:21] Okay. Okay, here we go.

Erin Elwood [00:07:24] Thank you.

How the Project Came Together

Mark Elwood [00:07:25] Okay, so my career. I'm an artist and. Sorry, I was going to tell about you first. Well, anyway, so Aaron, you know, she's a massive reader, a history enthusiast. She wants to be an archaeologist and. But she's not. But.

Mark Elwood [00:07:47] But she's like the number one supporter of this project. And without her, it wouldn't be real. I could not do it. So there's a lot of people that have helped me with this book as well that I should probably shout out as well at some point, but I'm okay. Sorry. Back to the slide. I'm an artist. There's some pictures on screen of, like, aerospace engineering designs and things. I worked for 10 years for this aerospace company in Atlanta and I made artwork that ended up with NASA and Air Force, other, like, Virgin Galactic, other companies you might have Heard of, and it was a really great job.

Mark Elwood [00:08:23] And the reason I bring this up is because it was a highly technical field where I had to be creative with within some confines of like, what the data they provided. You know, you can't just like make a wing or something, you know, how you want. On a. On an airplane or something. It has to follow the designs. So this kind of applies. And when I decided I was going to start drawing from documents and taking a historical document and turning it into some artwork, and let's see,

Erin Elwood [00:08:58] we got to figure out later.

John Dehlin [00:09:00] There's some beautiful visuals on the screen. And I just want to let people know that this is about much more than art. And we'll be getting into this. But you guys know way more about Mormon history than me or most people who will ever come on Mormon stories. That's an important part of today's episode. And the book.

Erin Elwood [00:09:20] Yes, no, it's definitely a historical project, but it's. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. So the. So this is the COVID of the book. And then Mark has depicted the 1823 retrieval of the plates, or I'm sorry, attempted retrieval of the plates. The first time he goes to the hill, Cumorah. And then on the right is 1827. And, you know, just already right there

Mark Elwood [00:09:41] sort of expounded stories, right? Like Exposure expanded.

Erin Elwood [00:09:44] They're not the correlated version.

John Dehlin [00:09:45] You know, no one on the left. Just to describe it for those who are just listening, the one on the left, what do they see?

Mark Elwood [00:09:52] So, yeah, on. On the left, I have a picture of Joseph holding the gold plates in the foreground. And behind him we have a toad. And we have this character that is a spirit, a man with a long beard. He's kind of got glowing eyes and lightning is kind of dancing around behind him so that, you know, you're looking at that, you're like, wait, how is this Joseph getting the gold plates?

Mark Elwood [00:10:20] But this is the 1823 account, and it's relying. The imagery is relying heavily on Willard Chase and Orlando. Orlando Saunders, kind of their own accounts of what Joseph had related to them. So it's different, but also pretty exciting and unusual. And this is kind of like what we found with whenever we're adding in these other sources that we may have overlooked. And then on the right, similarly, we have Joseph in the foreground with the plates, but this time he's kind of have. Has a bit more of an action stance. He's running, perhaps.

Mark Elwood [00:10:57] And behind him there's numerous demons, including a main demon that Looks kind of like a skull with horns and fire behind him. And those also. I think that one's pretty cool because 1827, when Joseph gets the plates, it's. We don't really have much in the actual history. You know, like he just pretty much says he went and got it. I think there's a. Maybe a few more to things to it. But if you add in a lot of these other sources, then you end up with pretty fantastic tale. And they're not all just, you know, like what we would consider anti sources. Like Brigham Young actually is one of the ones that. That speaks about Joseph and that there's millions of demons on the hill attempting to thwart his retrieval of the plates.

Erin Elwood [00:11:41] So Mark has a little sketch floating around the house of not a literal millions of demons, but a horde of demons on the mountain trying to attack Joseph Smith. And it's really funny. And there's another story of a demon that kicks Joseph in the butt, which our sons. That's our son's favorite story, but that's, you know, not in the correlated version that we learned. So in the book,

Mark Elwood [00:12:04] this is like, yeah, okay, so Aaron just switched the slide to show a historic document. And sorry, these are just our reprints of it, I guess. But what we've done is we've taken the some sources and we try to draw right from the source so we get details right out of it. And it's vignettes. Each time we have a vignette, a small tail. And then following that, we put the source in. So what I'm showing here is that we have Joseph, he's dousing on the Markle farm. And they mentioned that he.

Dowsing, Folk Magic, and Early American Treasure Culture

John Dehlin [00:12:45] What's dowsing for those who don't know what dowsing is?

Mark Elwood [00:12:48] Well, dowsing is a way to locate things underground. It's still. Still in use today. And. And let's see.

John Dehlin [00:13:00] It's like water. Water witching.

Mark Elwood [00:13:02] Water witching is another name for it.

Erin Elwood [00:13:04] You can use them for lots of things, though, not just for finding water, which is kind of how we think of it as like a little like harmless thing that people try to do even today. You know, people douse in Utah to find wells, find water, but it can also be used to find treasure and other things like that. And so there's this like pretty apocryphal tale about Joseph Dowsing on this farm. And you know, for instance, one of the sources says he was barefoot, or they say he was a barefoot boy. And so we draw him as barefoot. Does that have any significance?

Mark Elwood [00:13:36] You know. Yeah. At first we didn't really think maybe it did, but then, you know, the more we researched about dowsing, we ran into some documents that talked about how if you're barefoot, you have better contact with the ground, and maybe you're feeling the energy from the ground. And they would even put some kind of water or some light acidic liquid, I guess, and try to really get in contact with the stick and also the ground. And then I guess the other thing I wanted to show there was just that I tried to pull. If the character is historic, I mean, a historical character, then I'll actually pull him photographs if I can find him. So that's Jacob Chamberlain on the right.

Erin Elwood [00:14:20] He went on to be a state senator or state rep or something.

Mark Elwood [00:14:23] Sorry.

Erin Elwood [00:14:26] Pick up our son from the school bus.

John Dehlin [00:14:28] No worries. And I just want to. Yeah, that was. That was such a great thing about this book is you'll read a chapter, it'll tell a story, but then you provide the documents so that you can read the original sources. And that happens each chapter. So I just want to. I just want to validate that. That was a really fun thing because you think I would read these chapters and it'd be like, well, I've never heard this before. Is he just making this up? What is this? And then I'd read the sources and I'm like, holy smokes. This is based on actual documents. So. Good. Yeah.

Mark Elwood [00:14:59] Yeah, thanks.

The Hero's Journey and Narrative Structure

Erin Elwood [00:15:01] Do you want to do the Hero's Journey?

Mark Elwood [00:15:04] Yeah, well, I don't know how we're doing on time. Let's see.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Oh, you're fine, you're fine.

Mark Elwood [00:15:09] Okay, let's. Yes. So.

Erin Elwood [00:15:12] Well, okay, so, like, we. There's a lot of history, you guys, I promise. We're about to get into the history, but there's a lot of history. But this is also meant to be entertaining. Right? And. And, you know, if you wanted to read early Mormon documents, which you should, because it's really interesting, but if you wanted to read that, you could read that this is more told like a story. So Mark had to take these historical sources, stitch them together and weave a narrative, but trying to stay faithful to, like, the kernels of fact that were in these sources.

Mark Elwood [00:15:38] So, yeah, so if you've heard of the Hero's Journey, that's. Joseph Campbell created this idea, and it's basically pick any, you know, early Marvel movie or I like to relate it to Luke Skywalker because I'm a Star wars nerd. But, you know, your hero or your main character is going to go through this Path where he begins in an ordinary world. And if we're following Joseph, you know, he's just like a farm boy. Life's kind of boring, perhaps for him. But then he gets a call to adventure. He meets some characters like Lumen Walters and Sally Chase.

Mark Elwood [00:16:15] At some point, there's a refusal of the call, which means, like, you know, they're afraid to embark on their adventure. So Joseph returns his Seer stone to Willard Chase temporarily. He gets more interested in the revivals and the Christian stuff going on. And then, you know, Alvin dies as well. So that obviously is gonna slow down his pursuit of his destiny. But then he meets a mentor in the form of Moroni, which has him cross over the threshold into the special world. Or we like to call it the magic world. Right. And do you need to jump in?

Erin Elwood [00:16:48] No.

Mark Elwood [00:16:49] Oh, I thought you gave me a signal. Okay. So anyway, he retrieves the. The Seer. Wait, where he crosses the threshold and

Erin Elwood [00:16:57] retrieves the Seer stone.

Mark Elwood [00:16:58] Oh, yeah. He gets his Seer stone back from Wheeler Chase and then jumps into a major quest going down to Susquehanna with Josiah Stoll.

Erin Elwood [00:17:07] And he does a lot of treasure digs down there.

Mark Elwood [00:17:09] Yeah. At this point, if you're in, like, a movie, you know, of a superhero, you're at the point where they're doing the montage of, like, the hero saving everybody left and right and, you know, stopping the train from going off the tracks and stuff. But with Joseph, he's doing a. Numerous. Just an enormous amount of treasure digs in the Susquehanna area. Sorry. And. And then he. But then he gets arrested. Right. And that puts him in his kind of dark period, the low point. And that's where the name of the book comes from. The. The Glass Looker trial there. And just to bring it back home, you know, he recovers from that. He.

Erin Elwood [00:17:47] And so, like, that's the point where your hero is, like, gonna give up.

Mark Elwood [00:17:51] Oh, yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:17:51] In every. In every movie, you can think, like, Spider Man's had enough. Will he get up and do the final fight? You know, that's Joseph. Like, he's at the low point. Is he gonna give up the treasure digging?

Mark Elwood [00:18:00] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:18:00] No, he doesn't. Spoiler alert.

Mark Elwood [00:18:03] Right? So then, you know, he decides to continue with his quest. He manages to get the plates, bring him home, avoids all the people chasing him in the woods, you know, hiding the plates. And he is. Reinvents himself. He's, you know, that part of the curve there, or the arc is resurrection. Like, he's reinvented himself as a prophet and has, you know, translated the book Mormon and formed a religion. So we think it's all tied together. You know, the, the stories that we're talking about. This, this is, you know, the treasure digging leads to the formation of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] So that's fun. And, and, and for those who are like, hey, I'm not so happy about many of the things Joseph did, we're not happy with him being framed as a hero. What would you say about that? Because some do and some don't. But what would you say about that?

Mark Elwood [00:18:57] So, yeah, this, you know, we're, we're lucky in that we're avoiding a lot of the later problems with Joseph that obviously we don't agree with, that he was doing. In fact, you know, even the treasure digging, you know, it's mostly harmless and in a way, but at the same time he is already, you know, you know, tricking people perhaps or leading people on at times. But so we don't want to apologize for Joseph Smith here. We're not going to give Joseph Smith a break or anything, but at this point in his life he is, he does function as sort of a hero in this way.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] Literature.

Mark Elwood [00:19:34] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:19:34] Literary of the story, but if you're, I mean, I don't know, what's the name of that guy in Breaking Bad? Walter White? Is that his name?

John Dehlin [00:19:41] Right.

Erin Elwood [00:19:42] And so like you see them in all their good and bad, but their story and their journey is what's interesting as the protagonist or hero. And, and I would add to that, we're talking about like, so we're very focused in. Up through the, you know, through 1827, the treasure digging years. 1820 is when the book starts and that he's 15 years old. So we're talking about 15 year old teenager. Not saying that that means he's, you know, innocent, but he's a 15 year old kid and the book, you know, through 1827, he is 22 years old. So we're talking about a very small window of time when he's pretty young and before we get to the seven, you know, Kirtland and Abu, that really, you know, upsets people.

Mark Elwood [00:20:22] Yeah, but, and that's not to say like, you know, it is up for your interpretation here. Like the way we try to structure this book, we try to stay as neutral as we can and just kind of illustrate the sources now, you know, him forming a religion and becoming a prophet of God, like that's up to you whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you know, so that makes sense. Continue.

Overview of Volume One and the Story Arc

Erin Elwood [00:20:45] Well, so volume One came out last year in September, and It's the years 18, 20 to 21. So in justice 15 and 16. And it's the. Basically the ark is the retrieval of the white stone. And there's a, you know, a plan that will get through the publication of the Book of Mormon through various volumes. And so the series timeline is kind of mapped out in our heads of how that's going to look. I say our heads. It's really. Mark said he's the genius here.

Mark Elwood [00:21:10] Yeah. Well, I don't know if there's anything else to say about that, just that I'm trying to keep it to three or four volumes, but we will see how that works out. How long. My main. How long? Aaron will let me go.

John Dehlin [00:21:26] Yeah. So basically this isn't the only book you're going to be doing. This just covers of just a few of his early years and even before kind of the Book of Mormon plates kind of stuff. And so if you guys. I guess we'll be sharing links in the description in the show notes. But if you guys want to see more of these amazing books come out in the future, you can buy the book which supports the project. You can tell people about the book to buy the book which supports the project, and then you can donate to help fund the future, the work for future books as well.

Mark Elwood [00:22:01] Yeah. Thank you.

Erin Elwood [00:22:02] Thanks. So we wanted to start talking about a little bit Mormon history, more like in a meta way and why we think this matters. And then we're going to talk about specific treasure digging. So I. If anyone takes anything from this, I hope they take. If you think history is boring or you don't enjoy history, I just really want you.

Treating Historical Figures as Real People

Erin Elwood [00:22:24] One of my pet peeves is whether it's in Mormon history or other history where people are like, well, that was a long time ago. People did things different back then. We don't know what it was really like. And I just really want you all to think about the fact that history is tangible.

Erin Elwood [00:22:38] So I have here three photos. The top left is our son when he's three years old, playing in a puddle outside the Nauvoo house in Nauvoo on the gravel driveway there. And then below that is a picture we took of the Nauvoo house from that angle. And then, you know, we get home from our trip to Nauvoo. We were there with Sunstone, and Mark's looking at our photos and he says, hey, I think there's a painting of one of Joseph's kids playing in the same spot where Our son is. So, of course, we look it up and there it is. And that's what's on the right.

Erin Elwood [00:23:08] That's a painting that Joseph Smith's son, David Hyrum smith, did in 1865. I believe it's of him as a child with Emma. You know, he's like, reminiscing of playing with his mom in that same spot and sister or something. His sister?

Mark Elwood [00:23:23] Well, I don't know. It could be.

Erin Elwood [00:23:25] I don't know. I think it's unclear. But in any event, I have an emotional connection to this because obviously it's my child and, you know, we were on that trip. But art and imagery really helps us visualize things that we haven't maybe thought of before or help us find connections to people who lived in the past. And I just think that's really important to try to make the past relatable and remember we're talking about real people.

Mark Elwood [00:23:51] So now on the screen, we put up a slide that says myth before application. So, you know, images can be, like, really powerful in helping you learn stories, you know, and before you even know why you're learning them, I guess. So. For instance, I have a lot of Arnold Freeberg art up here from the Book of Mormon.

Mark Elwood [00:24:15] If we. If I asked you to picture Nephi, everybody would kind of picture the same guy with the headband and the, you know, one shoulder exposed, and he's real muscly. And I think same thing with. If we asked you to picture Joseph and translating the plates, you kind of picture him in, like, you know, that way that all the paintings in the lobbies of the churches with where he's got his finger on the gold plates and Oliver's back there right next to him. You know, they're not covered up or anything.

Mark Elwood [00:24:49] And, you know, none of these pictures are historically accurate. They. In fact, you know, we. I guess I was going to say we don't really have pictures of what jump in here about the.

Erin Elwood [00:25:07] Well, so. But if we said, imagine Joseph Smith translating using the cedar stone, every single person listening now has a different picture in their head. Now, maybe some of you are picturing south park because that was the most common image that was known. But it's not like Nephi, where Nephi is in our shared cultural consciousness. Like, we all think, like, the exact same thing, right? And so it's kind of disappointing to me because the early Saints grew up with this magical worldview, and we don't have those images in our. In our cultural heritage. Right. We don't see.

Erin Elwood [00:25:42] We don't see Joseph, like, in our mind's eye, we don't see Joseph engaging in these pursuits. We don't see the magical spirits and demons and things that are the early, early Mormons and our ancestors believed. I think it does a little bit of a disservice to them because they, you know, that's. That was their faith. That's what caused them to make the decisions that they made. And, you know, go ahead.

Mark Elwood [00:26:06] Oh, I can say that's why they follow Joseph. Right. They take their. Their experiences and apply it to. To Joseph and what he's telling them as well.

Erin Elwood [00:26:15] Right. So, you know, Brigham Young gave a talk over the pulpit where he talked about Porter Rockwell and Joseph Smith treasure digging together. And that's the quote there at the bottom of the screen. And he says that he thinks that he. He would like the people called Latter Day Saints to understand some little things with regard to the workings and dealings of the Lord with his people here upon the earth. And I really love that because the treasure digging wasn't this, like, wacky, like, side thing that Joseph did. It was like the dealings of the

Mark Elwood [00:26:44] Lord and you were going to get the treasure if the Lord allowed it.

Erin Elwood [00:26:49] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [00:26:49] It's kind of their perspective.

Erin Elwood [00:26:51] Yeah. And so the magic, magical worldview, you know, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris are the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. And we revere them for that role they played in. In our faith, or I'm saying our faith. Share faith, I mean, you know, as our cultural heritage. But we don't think about them as about the magical worldview that they also shared with Joseph and engaged in with him with the dowsing and the, you know, Whitmer. The Whitmer family had a seer stone. And I feel like. I feel like sometimes we know more about Nephi, who lived thousands of years ago. A dubious historicity. But if Nephi lived, he lived thousands of years ago. But as Mormons, we know more. Like, we are able to picture him better than we're able to picture what early Mormonism looked like. Like, actually looked like.

John Dehlin [00:27:40] Yeah, yeah. And so these pictures you have here, tell us just quickly what they are.

Mark Elwood [00:27:45] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:27:46] Do you.

Mark Elwood [00:27:47] Do you want to or.

Erin Elwood [00:27:48] Well, I made Mark draw these for me because it's one of my favorite stories. I read, read the John Turner biography of Brigham Young. And Brigham Young saw an army. How does he say? Great armies marching across the night sky, like on a. An ark. And they were marching towards the hill, Cumorah.

Mark Elwood [00:28:04] You could hear the rattling of the sabers and the.

Erin Elwood [00:28:07] And so he. He claims that he and his wife Miriam saw this separately. Heber C. Kimball says that he and his wife violate. See this. And they don't know each other at the time, but then they end up meeting each other and they both realize. Realize that this dates back to the date that Joseph retrieved the plates from the hill, Cumorah.

Mark Elwood [00:28:28] Right. So they're like taking their spiritual or, you know, their supernatural experience and project like. Kind of like re imagining it with the events that Joseph tells them. So, and then the other thing we have there, just to kind of show Brigham as viewing the world through the magic world. He carried a bloodstone with him. You can actually go see that at the U Dot Museum there in Salt Lake City. And it's supposed to prevent if. If you were shot or something. It's supposed to prevent you from bleeding out. And apparently you can read the inscription there at the museum. And it talks about that he would carry that around to protect him. Basically, like an amulet.

John Dehlin [00:29:08] And that's. That's down below?

Erin Elwood [00:29:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that little square, Julie.

Mark Elwood [00:29:13] Yeah. You can see it if you look at pictures of him. He's got it on a chain. There's like a couple chains that hook onto it.

John Dehlin [00:29:20] So that photo on the bottom right is Brigham Young wearing. Wearing it?

Mark Elwood [00:29:24] No, that's just an illustration I did one time for him. Kind of like, you know, make him younger.

John Dehlin [00:29:30] Okay, got it. So younger, Brigham Young.

Mark Elwood [00:29:33] Yeah. Okay. So we are. When we're illustrating this book, we want to kind of show like, what did the people believe back then? And I'm trying to be as neutral as I can. And let's see, these pictures here are. Well, let me just explain the pictures first. What we're looking at is we have some stuff from Martin Harris. Right. All these things are from Martin Harris kind of tongue in cheek. We have an X Files poster, but instead of the UFO flying overhead, we've. I photoshopped this one time, just as a joke.

Mark Elwood [00:30:09] We have the hill, Cumorah and a sword that's being let out of heaven. This is a vision type thing that Martin has. And he said that he saw this, the sword point in all the cardinal directions and then point downward at Cumorah. And this is similar to the Brigham Young story in that he later determines that it's the same date that Joseph was on the hill.

Mark Elwood [00:30:33] And we're writing this book for somebody like Martin Harris, who's just a believer of Joseph all the way through. He believes in the supernatural and he believes in the spiritual that Joseph is telling us. And the rest of the pictures there are, you know, everybody kind of knows about him encountering a deer in the form of Jesus. But there's other stories as well that,

John Dehlin [00:30:56] like Martin or Joseph.

Mark Elwood [00:30:57] Martin, okay. Yeah, yeah. He encounters a deer and apparently believes it to be Jesus and speaks with it while walking down the road. There's another story that I really like that where he encounters a demon and it, like, frightens the horse. He smells like, you know, a terrible smell. And he sees this thing and. Which is described to be like a upright walking greyhound cross the road in front of him. And there's. He has other stories that have to do with demons, including one where he's sleeping the night on the floor of the Smith home and he feels this great pressure on his chest and believes there's a. Some kind of demon on him there.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] So I love it. So this is helping us get a sense for this kind of the magic worldview that Martin Harris had by showing us these photos.

Erin Elwood [00:31:50] Right. But it's also the framing of the book where we're drawing the historical sources, regardless if they're pro or anti. You know, like, I feel like you can't dismiss. So if we write about an angelic visitation because Martin Harris tells us he has an angelic visitation, then. Then ex Mormons will be like, well, but there's no such thing as angels. Like, why are you apologizing for them? But then if we draw a bloody Spaniard ghost, then the believers are going to get mad at us because, well, there's no such thing as the ghost. You know, that. That's just anti Mormon lies trying to discredit Joseph.

Mark Elwood [00:32:23] We're trying to make everybody mad at us.

Erin Elwood [00:32:25] We're trying to make everybody mad at us is what we're trying to do. Because we're giving people the benefit.

Mark Elwood [00:32:31] We're just taking at face value whatever the document says and illustrating it. And you may see that story as absurd or you may see that story as like something that validates Joseph, you

John Dehlin [00:32:45] know, so depicting what they experienced or reported to experience or what their worldview was. That's great.

Mark Elwood [00:32:52] Yeah, yeah, that's great. Do you want to. Let's go on to that. That's okay.

Erin Elwood [00:32:56] Well, so the last point on this, and then we will be ready to get into the treasure digging. Oh, no, we're not. We still got more.

John Dehlin [00:33:03] Okay.

Erin Elwood [00:33:03] But no, this is going to a broader academic sense, though. You know, it's really fraught to study Mormon history or talk about Mormon history. Because ex Mormons want to use historical sources to prove that the. That Joseph never saw an angel, he never had a first vision, he never found any plates. Meanwhile, believers want to use historical sources to prove he did. And we're all doing it for the purpose of in 2022.

Erin Elwood [00:33:29] Is the church true or false? And so Adam Jortner wrote this fantastic book, he's a professor at Auburn called Blood in the Blood from the sky, and he writes about miracles and religiosity during this time period, and he has a whole chapter on Mormons. So just again, to take like a broader. Let's like, step back from Mormonism and say, what was America doing in this time period? Right. And he says that our historical focus should be on what kinds of decisions about reality. People made the effects of their decisions to believe or disbelieve in certain supernatural phenomena, because that's really what matters. Right.

Erin Elwood [00:34:03] Whether or not Joseph had plates, whether or not he saw the first vision. We're on Mormon stories today because people chose to believe him, our ancestors chose to believe him. And it's caused, you know, this chain of events that leads us here. So that's just kind of the framing I go back to again and again when I'm trying to detach myself and say, okay, but what are we looking at here, really?

Mark Elwood [00:34:25] That's really good.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] So just really quickly, it's a dance that's really delicate, and it's. It's been a part of Mormon history for a long, long time. And even the craft of professional, I don't know, Mormon historiography, because on the one hand, you know, historians just try and understand what evidence, what documents we have to support what most likely happened. And, you know, debates about truth claims and what is true and what isn't true and faith and no faith can really get in the way of, polarize and do a disservice to accurate history being presented. So on the one hand, you know, you can. You can sort of set aside truth claims in that endeavor, but it's also fair to say there's a lot of people, both believers and non believers, where for them, the stakes are really high, whether this stuff actually happened or not.

Erin Elwood [00:35:18] Really high.

Mark Elwood [00:35:19] What's that?

Erin Elwood [00:35:19] I do agree the stakes are really high.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:35:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:23] So we have to just kind of always be careful about what we're doing, when we're doing it. And in this case, you're just trying to do graphical representations of the history as you understand it to be.

Mark Elwood [00:35:34] Yeah. And I mean, it's partly just because we're in a good place. You know, we're not historians. I'm not a documentary historian, so I can sort of attack this at a new angle where I'm just going to illustrate it. And, you know, my. I'm not. I guess my people are. I don't know how to say this.

Erin Elwood [00:35:58] Like your motive is just to resurrect the stories that we didn't ever get told, right?

Mark Elwood [00:36:02] Yeah, yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:36:03] Are they true stories? Are they fake stories? Are they anti stories? Are they pro stories? But they're just things we never learned, and they're part of our. They're part of our heritage.

Mark Elwood [00:36:10] Right. And like. Yeah. And my reputation is not on the line either. Right. You know, compared to, like, someone an actual historian. So I'm just. It's lucky and I love doing it, so I'm really excited to kind of share these things. So let's go to.

Re-envisioning Joseph Smith's World Through Art

Erin Elwood [00:36:25] So, okay, I'll try. We'll try to move a little bit faster. But we, you know, feel it's necessary to envision Joseph in new settings. We have this, like, idea that he was a holy monk child living on his farm, reading the Bible with his family until the angel shows up and calls him to adventure. Right. But in the reality is, you know, his life. He had a lot more life experiences than that. And their family had housing instability. They moved from Vermont to New York. They moved houses. Do they own a tavern on Main street one time or something?

Mark Elwood [00:36:56] A shop. Right.

Erin Elwood [00:36:57] A pie shop or something?

Mark Elwood [00:36:58] Cake and beer shop.

Erin Elwood [00:36:59] That's right. So, but anyway, so here's some illustrations from Mark's book. On the left, you know, if you believe that he went to go get his white seer stone on the banks of Lake Erie. You know, you may have seen ships like this. I remember Mark showing me this. This drawing he made. And I'm like, are you sure that's right? But that, you know, that is what the harbor of Lake Erie looked like. Joseph may have seen those ships and the. The tavern here on the top, right. On the Great Genesee Road. That's like the interstate of the time. Pre trains. And it was a really big. And before the Erie Canal and before the Erie Canal. Right, right. And then in the bottom middle, he was hired out.

Mark Elwood [00:37:38] You know, the story goes, he's hired out to lumber, chop wood, and for a season.

Erin Elwood [00:37:45] And then when he's a teenager, and then on the right, you know, he excavates a Native American mound.

Mark Elwood [00:37:52] So those are all stories get featured

Erin Elwood [00:37:54] in places that we never, you know, we know Palmyra and Hill, Cumorah. Here's, you know, some new settings for him.

Mark Elwood [00:38:00] Right. And love it. All right, so then new characters. Well, first of all, I mean, we wanted to show also like not just new characters that we've never seen before, like Lumen in the upper right, Lumen Walters and he's leading a treasure dig in that picture, but also kind of reimagine characters that we do know, such as Lucy Mack Smith there and she's smoking a pipe. And then we have Joseph Sr. With a beer on the right. And you know, there's nothing really wrong with that. That was what people did back then. And. But I think if you watch any, you know, story produced by our church, we'll definitely not have them participating in these activities.

Erin Elwood [00:38:45] But these things both come from sources. So we're not like just trying to be mean and make sure they were hypocrites or they didn't follow the word of wisdom. I mean, there is a source that describes the way that Lucy lights her

Mark Elwood [00:38:55] pipe with a broom splint, which is what I tried to show there.

Erin Elwood [00:38:58] So and then you know, which Joseph, there's historical sources as to the fact he may have had a drinking problem. So. But at the same time, the word of wisdom is years from coming. So why would we avoid showing them engaging in social and cultural practices that were very common.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] Absolutely. And I want to know that if, if, and for me it's not even that I'm trying to like find something scandalous. If, if Lucy smoked a pipe or if Joseph drank beer, that's just fun and interesting and it helps give them color.

Mark Elwood [00:39:28] Right, Right. Exactly.

Erin Elwood [00:39:29] Right. Well, it's not scandalous either. And so we're not. People are more interesting. History is more interesting when you think about the fact these are real people, not cartoon characters. Right.

John Dehlin [00:39:44] Love it.

Erin Elwood [00:39:45] So we keep talking about, we want to re envision new places, new settings, new people, new ways of thinking. But none of this is new. Right. These sources have been around 150 plus years and the places haven't, you know, the places have been there and you know, the places and characters are not unknowable. So going back to this idea we started out with, the history is tangible. You can go to upstate New York and roads still have the same names. The land lines are the same for the property lines. You know, houses that are 200 years old are still standing. You can imagine that Joseph saw that house.

Erin Elwood [00:40:21] Families with the same last name still live there. And so, you know, Mark had a friend that was a friend named Nathan he was traveling up there. Shout out to Nathan, who was traveling with his family. With his family on a family trip to Palmyra. And he said, well, I'm trying to find this Yoast Farm. And so he was trying to help Mark find it. And he drove down Yost Road, and it's been called Yost Road for so many years.

Mark Elwood [00:40:43] Great pictures and reference for reference.

Erin Elwood [00:40:46] So.

Mark Elwood [00:40:47] And then these pictures here are. I was given. Let me see. The backstory here is that I had a friend, great friend, Johnny Stevenson, who's a historian, and he's recently passed. But he gave me a possible location. It kind of checks all the boxes for where Joseph might have retrieved his first seer stone. And so I was in Rochester on a trip, and for Sun Nose, for John Whitmer. John Whitmer.

Mark Elwood [00:41:16] And I went on my own little quest and took, you know, photos for reference. And these are what I use to create the scene where Joseph does find his stone. And I try to incorporate things that happen. You know, for instance, there was these two guys, these two kids fishing, and I was like, you know, that's not unreasonable thing to be happening. So I decided to put that in. And then, you know, and just coincidentally, I happened to find my own stone that, like, just on the ground, I found a stone that had a hole through it, which is. It's supposed to be essentially a seer stone. They call it a hag stone, actually.

John Dehlin [00:41:54] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:41:54] Pretty magical, Mark, to tell you something.

Mark Elwood [00:41:58] Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. I had my own little quest. So.

Erin Elwood [00:42:01] And then last thing on this point is just that people in this area are still telling stories about Joseph's Smith.

Mark Elwood [00:42:08] Yeah, we have, like. Oh. Oh, yeah. So I wanted to tell this story real quick. Another friend of mine was out. I was looking for a treasure quest or. Sorry, a treasure tale about a place called Red Rock. And I was having difficulty locating this particular town. So, you know, I used the source documents to kind of narrow it in on a Google map, and then zoomed in, and I saw there was a restaurant there called Red Rock Barbecue. So I was like, oh, well, maybe this is the right location. So I sent.

Erin Elwood [00:42:43] What? So you called them?

Mark Elwood [00:42:43] Oh, yeah, I called them first. And they're like, yeah, this used to be called Red Rock. There used to be a town here called Red Rock. So one of my friends, Eli Brady, who's also working on a novel about Joseph, he was in the area doing research as well. And he went there and ordered some food, sat down, and he asked, you know, why is this town?

Mark Elwood [00:43:07] Why is it called Red Rock and they said, oh, because of Joseph Smith. And he was like, just blown away because he didn't, he didn't let anybody know that he was trying to find out about Joseph Smith. They just immediately jumped there. And there's so many stories still in the area. I won't tell the rest of his story. I mean, it's, he has a lot of cool adventures down there. But I just wanted to say that the, the stories that are still told there, there's, they're the same, like there's a lot of unique folk, folk tales of Joseph, like walking on water and attempting various things.

Mark Elwood [00:43:43] You know, things like that, healings and some kind of supernatural events happening there that are very, you know, we, we would not consider them in our normal telling of Joseph Smith, but they still tell those stories there.

Erin Elwood [00:43:56] Well, and what I like about that whole Red Rock story is that Red Rock is like pretty much lost and forgotten. Right. Is included in the Dan Vogel dialogue article. I'm not trying to cast any shade to Dan Vogel, but it's like, it's probably pretty apocryphal, you know, but at this. And it's, you know, we have Google Maps today and so Mark was able to locate this Red Rock barbecue using Google Maps. But it makes you wonder, well, how many other red rocks are out there where Joseph engaged in stories? And in preparation for this, Mark said, well, they say in the source it was his first treasure dig.

Erin Elwood [00:44:28] And I was like, well, I don't think they met first treasure dig as in his first in his life, but maybe they met first in the area. Right. Like, because he engaged in a series of three treasure digs in the area, but we only know the one story. So it's kind of sad because it's really fun.

John Dehlin [00:44:44] Yeah, love it.

Erin Elwood [00:44:47] But what we do have, I'm not going to read it because you guys all went to seminary and know your Joseph Smith history. But what we do have is, you know, the one account Joseph and commits to is with Josiah Stole and Harmony for a Spanish silver mine. And he says, well, hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a mu. Of my having been a money digger.

Mark Elwood [00:45:05] So, you know, I, I knew there had to be more to that story and I wanted to figure out, okay, really, like, how many treasure digs are there?

John Dehlin [00:45:15] Can I just, can I just ask one question? Oh, I, I never learned about Josiah Stole and the treasure digging and the silver mine until I started reading, you know, like, you know, Grant Palmer or those types of books way later on. So My guess is there's a ton of Mormons who grow up just never knowing anything about any of the treasure digging. Is that fair to say?

Erin Elwood [00:45:43] Well, yeah, and we were talking last night when you read that account, is he. If you're reading that in the 1830s, 40s, whatever time he wrote it, are you understanding when you read that, you're like, oh, he's referring to treasure digging. Right. In the way that, I don't know, someone's making a tick tock today. And you were like, oh, they're talking about tick tock. Like it. There's a. There's cultural cues, you know. Or was he. Because it seems kind of like dismissive. Dismissive.

Mark Elwood [00:46:11] Like.

Erin Elwood [00:46:11] But I don't know if that's us reading it from today's lens or, or how people back then read it.

John Dehlin [00:46:19] But, but. And you guys saw the little top 15 things you don't learn from missionaries about the Mormon Church or about Joseph Smith. And, and just. I think people just don't know that, like, the way Joseph met Emma was by going on this treasure dig in Pennsylvania. Right. With Josiah Stole, and he boarded at the hail home how he met Emma. And that's why Emma's dad didn't totally love Joseph Smith and nothing came of the treasure dig. And then he got in trouble for it. That's a really important story. And I think almost no Mormons who aren't into history ever learn it.

Mark Elwood [00:46:53] Right. Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:46:54] And. Well, it's really fascinating because he did a lot in that area and he was back and forth to that area because it's not close. It's like, what, 150 miles away.

Mark Elwood [00:47:05] Yeah, that's about Right.

Erin Elwood [00:47:06] And that. Then that's where the glossary trial happens. And so, I mean, it's a very formative time of Joseph's life, but, you know, at the same time, it's where the Book of Mormon is translated. Right. In the hail in the cabin.

Mark Elwood [00:47:20] Well, they start. Yeah, they have.

Erin Elwood [00:47:23] Right. And then the priesthood is restored there. And so there's a lot of very important.

Mark Elwood [00:47:28] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:47:29] Events that happen there.

Mark Elwood [00:47:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:31] You hear about Susquehanna, but you don't know why he got exposed to Susquehanna.

Mark Elwood [00:47:36] Right.

Erin Elwood [00:47:37] Yeah, I don't know. I remember reading that story that Joseph's telling. Is that in Joseph Smith history, we. There's multiple versions floating around. We, we meant to be more prepared on that one. But like, I remember reading that in seminary or sometime and just thinking, did the Spaniards go to Pennsylvania? Like, did I miss this in history class? Like, that's what. Yeah, I remember Thinking like it didn't seem to. Like it made sense.

John Dehlin [00:48:00] But just to make clear what I think you're saying for. For non Mormon listeners, most Mormons don't know that Joseph Smith was involved in treasure digging. If they do know, it's usually they've heard about one. That's what you're saying, the Josiah stole silver mine. But what you guys are saying is, is it's way more. We're talking potentially dozens. And that's what we're about to talk about, right?

Erin Elwood [00:48:19] Yeah, that's right.

Mark Elwood [00:48:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the. He tries to dismiss it as just, well, I just was down there and I finally convinced him to stop. Stop digging for treasure. And. And there's more to the story than

John Dehlin [00:48:30] that Clinton saying, I didn't inhale. Right. A little bit like that. Right?

Mark Elwood [00:48:34] Yeah, something.

Erin Elwood [00:48:35] Well, because it doesn't make sense because Joseph, we just said it's 150 miles apart. If Joseph is just some common day laborer who's a digger that is being hired for grant labor, why would he hire him from 150 miles away? Yeah, there's like, why would Stol pay to hire someone from 150 miles away? Right, right.

Mark Elwood [00:48:55] But we're kind of beating a dead horse. I mean, even the church at this point is like, yeah, Joseph was treasure digging. So I think.

John Dehlin [00:49:01] Yeah, yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:49:03] So.

Mark Elwood [00:49:04] But, yeah, so what was fascinating to me though was to try to start finding how many there were. And that was. Oh, yeah. So let's go ahead and go to. After I started like category categorizing them, I decided I would try to find. Find out how many there were.

Erin Elwood [00:49:21] And so what he said was, aaron, I've decided I'm going to illustrate every single treasure dig.

Mark Elwood [00:49:26] Yeah, but I didn't know it was that many. I thought it was like 12 or something, but.

Erin Elwood [00:49:31] So he was going to illustrate them and post them to the Internet somewhere.

Mark Elwood [00:49:34] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [00:49:35] Little did he know it's a lot more complicated than that.

Mark Elwood [00:49:38] Yeah. So let's go to.

Joseph Smith's Treasure Digging Practices

John Dehlin [00:49:40] So this is a. This is a photo, a representation of many of the types of digs that Joseph would have engaged in. Can you just describe some of them for those who are listening?

Mark Elwood [00:49:52] Sure.

Erin Elwood [00:49:52] It's more specific than that. This is a chart of. Go ahead. Well, okay. This is a chart of. Every single one is a treasure that Joseph was reported to have dug for. Like, every single one represents a specific dig.

Mark Elwood [00:50:04] But it's not everything either. This is just some of the items. And what we are seeing is there's a grid of Treasure32. Wow, you're good at math. So, yeah, we have a grid, and each quadrant or each square has some item that Joseph was supposed to have dug for. And, you know, not all these stories are as reliable as others, but some of them are pretty. We have lots of sources on.

Mark Elwood [00:50:32] And some of them honestly, like, there's many stories out there that we don't know. Like, we have a hint of it. For instance, William Stafford, who reports his own treasure diggings firsthand. Like his own account of digging with Joseph, he mentions a few other items that they were looking for, such as hidden swords, gold candlesticks, gold images, keys.

Mark Elwood [00:50:59] And none of these have stories attached. So we. We can kind of assume that there's a lot more out there. That. And many of the accounts just say they were dug for treasure on this land. Right. We don't really even know what they were digging for. So.

Erin Elwood [00:51:13] But. So some of the pictures in the grid, we have the two sear stones, we have what, salt, other minerals.

Mark Elwood [00:51:19] And we'll get to that on another slide. Exactly.

Erin Elwood [00:51:21] Some golden furniture, but there's 32 there.

Mark Elwood [00:51:26] So. Yeah. So the next slide we have, you usually can take a treasure tale and break it down into these parts. Other folklorists do it this way, where you have the legend. It's sort of like the backstory, right? Like a pirate burying some treasure there. And this is like, usually kind of a elaborate story of, like, how the treasure got there. Then you have the quest, like the present day, like how. How they went to retrieve it or try to. To acquire the treasure. And that can be fascinating. And then the result, like, what happened or what we're left with. And you can have a treasure tale without having all three of those things. Most of them only have one part of this story, but on occasion, we'll have a story that goes all the way through it.

Erin Elwood [00:52:15] And this is not. And we're going to get into this in a second. But this is not just Joseph treasure digging. This is. Treasure digging was such a pervasive cultural practice throughout this period of American history that there's a lot of folklorists and historians that study just treasure digging tales in general, without regard to Joseph.

Mark Elwood [00:52:39] Let's see. Okay. And then continuing on, just like, how I would organize these things as I was researching, there's. You can break it down, like, in this way. And it's just because I'm a graph, you know, I'm a visual person, so I want to make these, like, graphics as I was learning.

Mark Elwood [00:52:57] So I would break it into, you know, like the treasure, what are they going for? The loc, the location, where is it, the date, where chronologically, if it's participants and the methods they use, which be like magic or you know, other, other ways they were trying to acquire this, the treasure. And then of course the outcome, like were they successful or not?

Mark Elwood [00:53:19] And it's always important, keep track of your sources. So that was another thing I did. And we will. Okay, so now we were mentioning what's, what is the treasure. And I kind of would break it into three categories here too. I'd say, okay, we have naturally occurring things. So that's where you know, you're dousing for water or minerals, you're looking for a silver vein or things that could actually be in the ground. You know, if you actually know what you're doing, then the next kind of treasure would be lost or stolen property.

Mark Elwood [00:53:55] Things like, and these don't necessarily have to be physically digging in the dirt, but sometimes they would look for Joseph, for instance, would have a horse that he tried to locate, a bag of wheat, a pin lost by Martin Harris, or a stolen roll of clothes cloth.

Mark Elwood [00:54:11] And then there's other possible lost or stolen items such as early settlers, money, payroll from early troops that could be out there, Revolutionary War cannons that were stolen and buried. And then last is the, the funnest category. It's the legendary items such as golden furniture, conquistador silver mines, a camel, the saddle of a camel, or like ancient people's treasure.

Erin Elwood [00:54:40] I really want to know how the camel saddle ended up in upstate New York.

Mark Elwood [00:54:44] Yeah, yeah. That comes from Peter Ingersoll's account. So and then we have a picture up just talking about the myth of these like again, like the treasure, how did it get there? And we have some illustrations that I was doing.

Mark Elwood [00:55:03] We have William Kidd bringing the treasure inland. We have a demon protecting a box of watches. We have a guardian on a horse that is like protecting actually or trying to prevent Joseph from taking the plates in one account. And then on the right is kind of a montage of some of the other things. We have a picture of some of the ancient peoples that were described by Joseph and others. Not, you know, you think Nephites and Lamanites, but also there's other people who are describing these ancient cultures that there wasn't today. There's not very much historical proof for any type of. Any historical proof, yeah, for these type of people. But you think of almost like Lord of the Rings, little dwarves that live underground, or giants minds and they have

Erin Elwood [00:55:52] like technological advances, like basically like, yeah, Gimli from the Hobbit.

Mark Elwood [00:55:58] Yeah. But I don't know if you have any other questions about those ones, John, but let's move.

John Dehlin [00:56:04] No, this is super fun. These photos are super fun. And you don't. So when you get that list just really quickly of what is the treasure, those aren't things that just Joseph looked for. They're. They're common things that lots of people look for.

Mark Elwood [00:56:17] Or these are all specifically Joseph. It's a really tiny font that.

John Dehlin [00:56:22] But yeah, that's a lot of stuff.

Mark Elwood [00:56:24] And there's probably more. This is just. I just quickly threw this together. So I was just grabbing different accounts

John Dehlin [00:56:29] and dropping salt, golden ore, wells, minerals. Like, he was really into finding stuff.

Mark Elwood [00:56:35] Yeah. Even if you don't really believe in his treasure digging, he spent a lot of time underground, like just digging for coal and digging for salt and water alone. Like there a lot of things he's digging for.

John Dehlin [00:56:46] So that's fascinating. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

Erin Elwood [00:56:51] So the more. The most fun thing is the myth to us because it's like supernatural and fantastic. And one of. One of. One of my favorite stories is like the golden furniture. Like Joseph goes digging for golden furniture. And I just picture this like desiccated corpse, like covered in cobwebs and like.

Mark Elwood [00:57:08] Oh, because. Yeah, he's supposed to be.

Erin Elwood [00:57:10] Oh, sorry.

Mark Elwood [00:57:11] Yeah, he was supposed to be like. Like Lorenzo Saunders kind of talked about. It was like King, I think, kind of sealed up during one of their great battles between the Nephites and Lamanites. And he sealed up like just sitting on this throne. So it's pretty cool story. And that one kind of leads into the Miner's Hill story. And let's see if we can.

Erin Elwood [00:57:34] Oh, yeah. Can you go to the map please, John? Yeah.

Mapping the Treasure Digs with Modern Tools

John Dehlin [00:57:37] Okay, so what we're going to do now is switch to this map. Why don't you guys describe the technology you're using here and why this is so super cool.

Erin Elwood [00:57:44] Okay. Well, it's just Google Maps. You guys have it on your phone, but no. So Mark started with. He started with Dan Vogel's dialogue journal article of the treasure. Sorry, what is the title?

Mark Elwood [00:58:02] The Treasures the Early Locations of Justice Treasure Dig or something like that.

Erin Elwood [00:58:06] Sorry, we like really, really bungled that one. So anyway, he. He has what, maybe 18 treasure digs in that one? Something in the teens. And so Mark just was plotting them on Google Maps because we went up to Palmyra in 2018 and Mark was like, I want to visit all of them. So we did. We drove Through New York. And we visited. Visited them. But then it kind of got out of control because anytime Mark read a treasure digging source, he would put it on the map. So let me be clear. The green or the blue is not Joseph. The blue is just other people treasure digging. As you can see, the entire eastern seaboard has been dug up by people mostly looking for Captain kids.

Mark Elwood [00:58:46] Yeah. Which is why it's along the coast there, most of those sites. But if we zoom into this area, Joseph's digs can be broken kind of into two areas. Zoom out a little bit more. We've got, you know, the Susquehanna area down there and the Manchester Palmyra area up there.

Erin Elwood [00:59:02] There.

Mark Elwood [00:59:03] And I don't know if we can turn a few things off, but let's. Let's zoom in. So we were talking about Miners Hill, for instance. It's right here. Go up. That's.

Erin Elwood [00:59:12] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So here is just his family. They live in these cluster of homes here. And the temple's there. If you cross over the road down

Mark Elwood [00:59:23] here, you have the Chase's property, just north Chase is here, I think a little further. No, that is it. Yeah, that's. And then right next to it is Miners Hill Road. It's called today. And Miners Hill is where Aaron was referring to that story about the someone who's, you know, been trapped inside this cave.

Mark Elwood [00:59:45] I guess that's one way to look at it. But there's a lot of stories and they don't all agree, but Martin Harris considered it holy ground and some of the believers considered it a place where. Oh, we're gonna get into this later, by the way, Aaron, maybe. Okay, well, we have a picture later. Maybe we can bring it up, but.

Mark Elwood [01:00:07] Of Miners Hill, and I'm kind of butchering it, but Casey Kern did a lot of research and if you want to learn more about this, you've got to check out his website and he's got every mention of the cave. But we'll get into this a little bit more maybe.

Erin Elwood [01:00:22] But. So, yeah, do you have any questions before we turn?

John Dehlin [01:00:25] No, I just. I just. I just think that if you're to zoom out just a tiny bit, it's so cool to just see visually how many. How many digs Joseph did and how distributed they were. Right.

Erin Elwood [01:00:39] Yeah. So this is Palmyra area. Sorry, I didn't. Wasn't clear before. So the blue were other people treasure digging. The yellow are Joseph.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:00:48] And then. So if we go past the Finger

John Dehlin [01:00:50] Lakes, if you zoom out and show all of them. Show all the yellow. Do a zoom that shows all the yellow. Like, it's a lot. Over a lot of territory.

Erin Elwood [01:01:00] Yeah. So those are New York. I mean, generally this. The two clusters, but we have three that are a little bit further out.

John Dehlin [01:01:09] Expanding Buffalo into Palmoira and then down into Pennsylvania. I. I made a joke that it almost sounded like. It almost makes me think of a gopher or a mole. Right.

Mark Elwood [01:01:20] Yeah. They're. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:21] Everywhere. Right.

Mark Elwood [01:01:22] They were. They.

Erin Elwood [01:01:23] Well, because you have to keep digging. I'm sorry. I just realized you have to keep going because there's like eight over here. Yeah.

Mark Elwood [01:01:30] Yeah. So this is where Joseph is having kind of this area around along the Susquehanna is where many of these digs were happening really quickly with like.

Erin Elwood [01:01:40] Yeah. For reference. So, you know, the. If you've ever been to Harmony and to the priesthood restoration site, you know, this is all owned by the LDS Church, the Joseph and Emma Smith home where the plates were being translated. And, you know, Emma grew up in the hail home right here or the graveyard where their son, Their first. Firstborn son was stillborn. He died.

Mark Elwood [01:02:01] Right.

Erin Elwood [01:02:02] Yeah, as an infant. Anyway, this hill right here, that's where the Spanish silver mine was. So it's like in Emma's backyard. You can just see it from. From the house.

Mark Elwood [01:02:12] Yep. And. All right, well, anyway, the map is cool. It's basically where I do all my research and try to drop things in as I find them. But.

Erin Elwood [01:02:24] And the. Just to point for cultural reference, the brown or Native American mounds, like actual archaeological Native American mounds. And so, you know, the existence and presence of Native American culture definitely was an influence on Joseph's life. So.

Mark Elwood [01:02:41] Yeah. Okay.

Erin Elwood [01:02:42] And are you able to go back to the slidestone or do you want to.

John Dehlin [01:02:46] Yeah, let's go back to the slides.

Mark Elwood [01:02:49] Where are we?

Erin Elwood [01:02:51] So that answers the question of where, you know, where were the treasure digs? Where was he digging treasure? You know, you. Because, again, you can locate them, you can visit them if you are persistent.

Mark Elwood [01:03:01] Here's the picture I was trying to find Eric talking about. So on the right is a picture from Casey Kern, and he actually excavated where Miners Hill, the cave, was supposed to be. And he. I mean, his story is really awesome, and I think he did. Yeah, he did a podcast on Gospel Tangents recently where he talks about this story, and if you haven't heard it, you should go listen to it. But they basically, you know, use a backhoe and pull the dirt away where it's kind of caved in, and all of a sudden they have a hole and they can you know, stick their hand in there, they pull it out.

Mark Elwood [01:03:38] You can go in there. This is like a, you know, actual location. You can go in there if, if you get property, you know, permission from the property owner. But you can see like the pick marks on the walls and the roof. And I just wanted to point that out that it's like these are real places. There's a few of them you can still go find. And that one is very famous, very well documented, tons of sources. And on the left, if I can

Erin Elwood [01:04:04] interrupt, because this cave is man made. This is not a naturally occurring cave. Someone dug up this cave. For what reason? Were they treasure digging? Were they hiding stolen property? Was there a Nephite Lamanite battle? I mean, I don't know, but somebody dug this hole.

Mark Elwood [01:04:17] Yeah, and, and some sources say he took the plates back to this hole, not to Kimora, and that they're actually buried in this hill. So. And then there's other theories that Oliver Cowdery was working on a printer's manuscript in this cave. And what else? I mean there's just, there's lots of theories. Counterfeiting, maybe they were doing counterfeiting in there as well.

John Dehlin [01:04:40] So really quickly. So I guess in, in Utah and in California and other places, they're kind of naturally occurring caves from like water erosion and stuff. But what you're saying is when there are caves maybe around Joseph Smith's area, it's more likely and maybe in fact that they were actually dug out or created. Is that right or not?

Erin Elwood [01:05:02] No, well, we're not geologists, so I, I wouldn't feel comfortable opining on that. It's just that this, this cave, that particular cave, very well documented to have a man made. And so if you Google Miners Hill Cave, the first hit that comes up is Casey Kern's website and he has a database of every single historical source that ever mentions miners. Hillary Clinton and you can.

Mark Elwood [01:05:24] Yeah, it's, it's really great.

Erin Elwood [01:05:26] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [01:05:26] So, and then the other, we just had a few other places there. The, that's the map of the silver mine that was drawn by the, by Emily Blackman, the historian for that area. And if you look in any history of whatever county, you will find a treasure dig in that area. I'm still finding them to today, so I'm still researching some and let's go ahead. I think we've talked a lot about that. So again, since I'm a visual guy, I just wanted to be able to keep track of these people. And so I started attaching faces to Them. And this is. This is kind of, again, looking back of how this turned into a graphic novel on screen. I have a bunch of note cards with faces that I've attached to historical characters. Some of them, most of them we don't have a photograph of. So let's see anything more.

Erin Elwood [01:06:20] We, you know, the characters, we use our characters, but really the real people are the kind of the stars of the show and that they're hostile to Joseph or they believe Joseph and. But they all have stories to tell. Like, so every single drawing here Mark made is a person with a story to tell about Joseph in some way.

Mark Elwood [01:06:40] Oh, and this is. Yeah, Quinn said something like this. That a lot. I guess we're kind of going back again, but you just can't dismiss people just because they were hostile. And this is kind of that quote, it says, should we read it or.

Erin Elwood [01:06:55] It's too long. But yeah, but just, you know, you should consider what the neighbors are saying is basically all he's saying.

Mark Elwood [01:07:01] So. Yeah, go ahead, John.

John Dehlin [01:07:04] Yeah, well, I just think for me, the visual of all those participants we're talking about, like, if you just do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. How many are on this slide?

Mark Elwood [01:07:14] Oh, let's ask the math person.

Erin Elwood [01:07:16] Oh, I don't. I didn't have this one ahead of time.

John Dehlin [01:07:17] 56 names. So there's like 56 different people that what you're saying participated with Joseph and treasure digs, is that right?

Mark Elwood [01:07:25] Yeah, yeah. These are not. And this isn't extensive. I mean, and some of these people would be that people that were. They witnessed it. I guess they weren't necessarily involved with shovel and dirt or they own the

Erin Elwood [01:07:39] land and allowed them to be on the land. But, you know, it's. It's definitely not exhaustive. Mark was just like brainstorming and he was just listing off the top of his head, like the names he remembered.

John Dehlin [01:07:47] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:07:48] One I don't see on here is Alva Beeman. Wasn't he a treasure digger?

Mark Elwood [01:07:51] Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. I guess we don't really have a tale of him other than trying to find the plates under the hearth or whatever.

John Dehlin [01:07:58] That's just super. It's just super. It's just really extensive.

Mark Elwood [01:08:01] And then.

John Dehlin [01:08:01] Yeah, I, We. We were talking about this yesterday, I think in preparation for this. I'm so frustrated that just because, you know. And again, this isn't to be anti Mormon. It's just to say how we should think about documents. Because so often, I guess the hurlbut affidavits or Edie, how's Mormonism unveiled? I don't know exactly how to describe it, but like affidavits were written, even including Emma Hill's dad, Isaac, of people saying, I was Joseph's neighbor, I went on digs with Joseph, I knew him, I knew the family. And they're writing down their mem memories of first hand interactions. And somehow we've all been conditioned as, you know, maybe as faithful Mormons to just say, oh, if someone said something negative, it's anti Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] Unless it's not credible and we can't even look at it. And that's, you know, it would be just as wrong to say that a faithful person's account can't be credible because they're faithful. It's just as wrong to say that as it would be to say that if someone didn't like Joseph, their account is incredible. But I think we've all been primed in the church to kind of feel that way. And we dismiss a lot of good information. True.

Mark Elwood [01:09:08] Yeah. It's a shame because a lot of really great stories get lost too.

Erin Elwood [01:09:11] And, and like you can, you know, sometimes you can see through the bias or they're, you know, because it's so obvious, the bias, whichever direction it is. But it doesn't mean that there's still not, you know, accurate information, good information in there, a kernel of truth of some kind or details that are, that help us relate or humanize these people.

John Dehlin [01:09:31] Yeah, like Isaac talks about the stone in the hat in the Book of Mormon translation. He says, and he talks about the treasure dig. He talks about Joseph not finding treasure. There's so much you can learn just from Isaac Hale's single affidavit, right?

Mark Elwood [01:09:43] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:09:44] And he was there first hand, witness to all of them.

Erin Elwood [01:09:46] So anyway, sorry, no good stuff.

John Dehlin [01:09:50] And that's what Dan, that's what Dan

Mark Elwood [01:09:52] was saying in that quote, right, Quinn? Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [01:09:55] Oh, is that Michael Quinn? Okay.

Erin Elwood [01:09:57] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:58] Okay.

Mark Elwood [01:09:58] Yeah.

Seer Stones, Peep Stones, and Ritual Objects

Erin Elwood [01:09:59] So a lot of people involved, a

Mark Elwood [01:10:02] lot of great characters. These are two of them. We have Lumen Walters on the left, Sally Chase on the right.

John Dehlin [01:10:10] Are you gonna be telling later what their roles were? Because I think they're important.

Mark Elwood [01:10:14] Let's just do it right now, I guess, just a real brief. Like Lumen is a seer who. It's, it's really cool. They're both mentors to Joseph. Right. So Lumen Walters is a seer who is a little more trained in magical implements. He has, you know, a magic book, a magic stone, a rusty sword. A stuffed toad. And he has, you know, more elaborate treasure diggings. He's out there doing treasure diggings. He's also an antagonist to Joseph. Later, I would say he's trying to get the plates. They hire him to try to find him. Sally on the right is someone that Joseph would visit frequently. And she was a neighbor, and she's a little more of a. Someone he might be able to relate to because. Yeah, I mean, like, he's.

Erin Elwood [01:11:07] She's a peer. She's older than him, but not much.

Mark Elwood [01:11:09] Yeah. And her magic, I kind of consider to be a little simpler. You know, she's mainly just looking for lost items. And she doesn't. As far as I know, there's no story of her participating in a dig, but she would send people, her brother Willard and Joseph and Alvin, directions to go find treasure. So she had a little green stone, and that's kind of. I portrayed her with the stone there that Joseph would look into spirit find. And. And that's the stone he supposedly looked in to find his own first seer stone.

Erin Elwood [01:11:43] And that comes. Well, part of that comes from Lucy Mack Smith. Like, in her autobiography, she says that Sally was a neighborhood girl that had a greenstone that she could see many amazing things.

Mark Elwood [01:11:53] Right.

John Dehlin [01:11:54] And for me, what's so crucial about both of them? If you, you know, we're all just taught. Joseph Smith has the first vision. He. He has the surgery. He. He doesn't. He refuses the alcohol, he loves the Bible, and then he has the first vision. That's kind of like what we're all taught. But the truth is. No, actually he. He had parents who believed in folk magic. He had neighbors and people around town doing treasure digs. He learned about Searship or scrying or glass looking from other characters. That's his first introduction to this world. And then the religious sort of stuff grows out of this treasure digging. And that's why Lumen and Sally, I think, are really important for people to understand Joseph Smith.

Erin Elwood [01:12:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, and because Sally, you know, so the next thing on Mark's like, checklist of how to analyze a treasure jig is, well, how did they go about getting a treasure? If you, you know, if you were going to retrieve a slippery treasure that's guarded by spirit, how would you do that? What methods would you use? And Sally was, as we said, a mentor that helped potentially. You know, this is how we imagine it. Anyway, Joseph learned some of those skills.

John Dehlin [01:13:07] So show. Talk about what these panels show just for the people listening.

Mark Elwood [01:13:11] Okay. The upper right, we Have Joseph looking into a hat. And this was the thing that Sally did, which, you know, so we know Joseph did this, right? This is what we're being taught now is that he would put the stone in the hat and look into it and see things. Sally also did the same thing, and there was many other seers that did the same strategy of, like, looking in the stone in the dark, in a dark place.

Mark Elwood [01:13:43] We. I don't know, we have other ones that we've looked up before, and, like Zim. There's a character named Zim, which I love. Maybe we'll get to him later. But he doesn't have anything really to do with Joseph, but he's in the area contemporary and also would look in a stone in a cap.

Mark Elwood [01:14:01] And the other pictures that I have showing here are Joseph actually burying his head in the hat. You know, I think a lot of times, even with a new artwork coming out from the church, we still kind of showing him just, you know, it's not too weird. He's got the rock and the stone in his hat on his lap, but we can still see his face and everything. But most of the accounts describe it as, no, you. You really, like, stick it right on your face and can't let anyone.

John Dehlin [01:14:29] And yeah, it's so beautiful, that art, because it. It. It really brings it to life. It makes it so fun and interesting. And then just the history is so crucial that Joseph Smith, it's not just that he uses stone in the hat. He got that idea from other contemporaries around him, like Sally Chase, who happened to be his neighbor, that there's so much that's important about what you guys are doing. So I'm loving it.

Mark Elwood [01:14:54] Oh, thanks.

Erin Elwood [01:14:55] Well, and so then the one below is dousing. We already talked about dousing, but, you know, we know that Oliver Cowdery had a dousing rod. It was even mentioned in the Doctrine of Covenants. Joseph Senior. Joseph Junior. So, like. And then dousing, you know, it's still today. Even today, we. We've had two experiences with local historians in different states who use dousing in their historical research. So, I mean, dousing is still really prevalent in American culture. I would say really prevalent. I don't know how many of you know people that douse, but it's. It. It's persistent.

John Dehlin [01:15:25] Wasn't the Academy Award winner of last year include dousing The. The one about the Korean family in. In the Midwest who has to. They have to douse for. Douse for water? You guys haven't seen that movie?

Erin Elwood [01:15:36] I haven't seen that? No, no.

John Dehlin [01:15:38] It's in an Academy Award winning movie from I think last year.

Erin Elwood [01:15:41] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [01:15:42] Right.

Erin Elwood [01:15:42] And so one thing just about chronology here, because, you know, most of these affidavits don't have dates. They just say Joseph did this. And so sometimes they'll give a clue, like it was before my dad died. Like a character will say that. And so.

Mark Elwood [01:15:54] And then we have an actual date. We can.

Erin Elwood [01:15:56] So we're like, okay, it happened before next date. But, you know, we had. Mark chose to put the Dow scene. Well, you. You should explain it.

Mark Elwood [01:16:03] Oh, it's just that, like Michael Quinn kind of did a progression of magical, like, implement. So went from dousing rods to once, you know, like to the seer stone to an another seer stone, a more powerful seer stone. And then from there to the Urim and Thummim. And eventually he doesn't even need that anymore.

Erin Elwood [01:16:24] He could just talk directly to God.

Mark Elwood [01:16:26] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:16:26] Receive direct revelation. So that was kind of how we chose to show it incrementally.

John Dehlin [01:16:33] Got it.

Erin Elwood [01:16:35] So. All right.

Mark Elwood [01:16:37] Oh, yeah. Actually go to the next slide because that has all the seer stones that. I mean, there's. There's a lot of searstones. This is just some again, and not all from, I guess the Palmyra area either. But we have just a page of seer stones here. We've got Joseph's. The photo the church released of the brown one. The upper right is his green seer stone, which is lesser known and like I said, only as far as I know, only has one treasure digging story attached to it.

Erin Elwood [01:17:06] It's the one at Red Rock.

Mark Elwood [01:17:09] And then the three seer stones to the left are all Whitmer stones, I think, owned by the community of Christ. That one on the far right is Lumen Walters stone. Just. There's not really a description of it that I'm aware of. So it's just a magic stone. Just created my own version. Sally Stone we do have descriptions of. It's on the bottom left. It's a, you know, about the size of a thumb, I guess it's green. And then the white stone was shaped kind of like a baby's foot. And that one that I'm pretty sure the church has it. And I really wish they would release a picture of it because that would be pretty cool. And then we have Josh.

John Dehlin [01:17:52] The church has who Stone.

Mark Elwood [01:17:53] I think the church still has the white seer stone. They haven't released a picture. So I'm calling him out and I want him to release a picture of It.

John Dehlin [01:18:01] So they've released one, but not all of the seer stones.

Mark Elwood [01:18:05] Yeah. And apparently they have several, like, not just these two. They have. I think Brigham Young described a large seer stone, like a big one that they had, which could be one of these ones I've drawn on the right. But Joshua Stafford had a searstone with a hole in it. And then, of course, Hiram Page, that. That one's pretty famous because it makes into the Doctrine of Covenants where he's getting revelations from it, and they have to, like, destroy it at the end. And then that's just a Navu seer stone that he gets later that has all those holes.

John Dehlin [01:18:36] One in the bottom, right?

Mark Elwood [01:18:37] Yeah. And apparently there's two of those. I. I think again from Quinn.

John Dehlin [01:18:41] So Joseph uses that in Nauvoo, that type of seer stone.

Mark Elwood [01:18:45] I. There's no story attached, but apparently that's where it was found, you know, in Nauvoo, and it was. Belonged to Joseph. So I don't. I don't have any treasure digs at that late. It seems kind of unlikely that there'd be treasure digs that late. But we do have, you know, the event where they go to Salem to try to find some money buried in someone's basement. So, you know, I don't know exactly, but their point is, is that seer stones are prevalent.

Erin Elwood [01:19:11] Seer stones are prevalent. All of these people knew Joseph personally or interacted with him and had stones.

John Dehlin [01:19:18] Love it.

Mark Elwood [01:19:19] Yeah. Okay. And then this just shows some of the magic that would be used to try to get the quest treasure. I mean, on the left, we have lumens, magical gear. These are some pages and panels from my book. And, you know, you can see we've already described him, but, you know, a stuffed toad, a rusty sword, a magic book. And in the middle, imagine that he

John Dehlin [01:19:49] would just pull these out when he's doing some type of incantation. He'd pull out a book or pull out the toad. And.

Mark Elwood [01:19:55] And, well, most of this is coming from Abner Cole, so you really have to get with a grain of salt. But he does. He does it in two formats. He releases it as Obadiah Dogberry, his, like, book of Pukei, which is really, you know, fancifully written, I guess. And then he also releases a little more seriously, as some newspaper articles called gold Bible Numbers 2 and 3 or something like that. So you can kind of compare the two things where he has a serious account where he's like, yeah, this is what he did. And to his silly account where he's making it sound like the Book of Mormon, and there's stuff that definitely correlates there, so. And he probably did know firsthand because it was on his property that Lumen was digging at the time, I believe.

Erin Elwood [01:20:45] But so the rooster. You got to explain why there's a rooster.

Mark Elwood [01:20:48] Oh, yeah. So Lumen kills a rooster and drips blood all around the area.

Erin Elwood [01:20:54] And that's not the only instance of animal sacrifice.

Mark Elwood [01:20:57] Right.

Erin Elwood [01:20:57] In treasure digging. I mean, it's not like the most common way. But it's definitely

Mark Elwood [01:21:03] not just Joseph like other area. Other diggers in the area were doing a similar thing where they cut the throat of an animal and, you know, different things would happen. Like the way the blood splurted might be the direction to dig, or they might try to secure the area from evil spirits by wherever the blood was. And so it's kind of graphic by today's standards, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:21:25] I seem to recall at least one account where Joseph Smith has a black sheep killed. Is that right?

Mark Elwood [01:21:31] Yeah. And that's William Stafford. And he's doing that firsthand, so, you know, he's there. So most people would be too afraid to tell their stories where they're including themselves in it. But in this case, he is like, yeah, they got a sheep from me, and, you know, they killed it and. And then they ate it, which kind of made me grumpy and, you know, stuff like that.

John Dehlin [01:21:51] But have you drawn. Have you drawn Joseph Smith killing the black sheep yet? Have you drawn that?

Mark Elwood [01:21:55] No. And actually I try to. So it doesn't specifically say Joseph kills the black sheep. I have to check. I might have someone else be killing that one. But there's other accounts where Joseph is like a lamb. There's a lamb that gets killed by him. Or a dog. A dog, yeah. So there is a few other instances,

Animal Sacrifice and Ritual in the Digs

John Dehlin [01:22:15] but Joseph was involved in multiple. You think maybe multiple animal sacrifices in his treasure digs?

Mark Elwood [01:22:21] I think so, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:22] Okay.

Mark Elwood [01:22:25] Anything else? I say, I guess just in the middle there, that Sally, when she takes her green stone, puts it in a paddle, and is looking for the gold plates later. You know, she's a friend, or at least, you know, a neighbor, friendly neighbor to the Smiths at the beginning, but they become enemies near the end.

John Dehlin [01:22:42] So Joseph would have told her that gold plates existed and so she would go out to try and find them.

Mark Elwood [01:22:47] No, this is after he retrieves the plates and he's hiding it. You know, the stories we all hear where he's hiding it.

Erin Elwood [01:22:53] He's not being persecuted by Persecutors well, the persecutors. Sally Chase.

Mark Elwood [01:22:56] Yeah. Sally Willard, Samuel Lawrence. All these people that were his friends or were working with him to acquire a treasure. Once he gets a treasure and he's not sharing it with the rest of them, it definitely makes them angry.

John Dehlin [01:23:09] So a lot of the persecution of Joseph early on were people that he had maybe indicated he would share some of the treasure with. And they're like, hey, you promised. Where's the treasure? Is that.

Mark Elwood [01:23:21] Yeah, I think that's fair to say that they. I just think it's cool to think because that's just an example. Like our whole life there's always been these mobs and they're. These are people with faces. Right. They're real people. So it's kind of neat.

Erin Elwood [01:23:33] People that Joseph knew, they weren't just like guys that got, you know, riled up in a tavern and decided to like march on the town, you know, with torches. Like they're his friends, his neighbors, you know, really quick.

John Dehlin [01:23:46] Really, really quick. And I know, I know we're taking some time to drill in on the top, right. You know, you've got a circle with a bunch of lines, like almost like a pie that's being drawn and someone's standing in the middle and people standing all around. Like. There's two things that, that come to mind for me. There's. One is just kind of the. It's almost like a seance. It's like this mystical feeling and there's torches and it's at night. You just get the feeling that they must have been really spooked, that they're doing some Harry Potter like incantation. I almost expect Voldemort to appear there.

John Dehlin [01:24:19] That's the kind of scene that you depict. But also I think it's kind of important because if, if, if we know that no treasure, just say none of the treasure that they were really searching for ever gets found in terms of like, you know, chests of buried treasure. But that's what they're looking for. Joseph needs to be able to say sometimes this kind of blame reversal technique, which is like you didn't do all the steps quite right and that's why we didn't find the treasure. So there kind of needs to be a bunch of steps so that then the non finding of the treasure sometimes can be blamed on people. Is that fair? Not fair. That's just my understanding.

Mark Elwood [01:24:58] No, that's fair. And in fact, the next slide we were just about talked about, so. You're just awesome. You're right on.

Erin Elwood [01:25:04] Sorry, John, do You have a seer stone,

John Dehlin [01:25:09] maybe? No, I don't actually. I do. I'll look for it.

Mark Elwood [01:25:14] Cool. So yeah, a lot of times I'll get this question, like, did Joseph find anything? And so let's dig into this a little bit. Just for your information, I have a pie chart up here and it kind of is broken down to four successful digs, 17 failed digs, 12 partial failures, and eight unknown. But this is really out of date. I just made it, I don't know, a couple years ago and I was being pretty generous at the time and I gave Joseph some successful digs based off of the fact that he came home with, you know, a stone that he was trying to find.

Did Joseph Smith Ever Find Anything?

Mark Elwood [01:25:52] And then he came home with another stone that he was trying to find and he came home with the gold plates. That's the third item that I count. And then the fourth was gold watches. And that both of those kind of get asterisks by them because the, the gold plates, you know, no one really saw unless maybe perhaps spiritual eyes and the, or they'd fill them, you know, but you couldn't really see them. And so that's one account or one way to look at it. And then the other, the, the golden watches, I count it as something that he did find only because we have a source that says that they were looking for it.

Mark Elwood [01:26:36] And Joseph Capron talks about that they were looking for these box of gold watches. But then we have Joshua Stafford later telling the story that they did find gold watches because Joseph was trying to unload them and he needed to sell them, but he needed to leave town to do it for some reason to

Erin Elwood [01:26:56] borrow Joshua's horse or something, right?

Mark Elwood [01:26:57] Yes, yes, that is the story.

Erin Elwood [01:27:00] Presumably Joseph came into some watches somehow.

Mark Elwood [01:27:02] Yeah, but like John was saying, most of them are failed digs. I mean, that's by far and large that's the way that it would happen. And sometimes it's really simple like that, like, sorry guys, you know, we must have done something wrong. But sometimes it can be a little more dramatic than that as far as the story goes and that the, like there's some stories where they.

Mark Elwood [01:27:30] I guess this isn't a Joseph Smith story, but, but in one story they would spear the chest with the, they had like a magic spear, they plunged it down, they heard some coins jingling and then the. So the main guy's holding in place while the others are digging all around it. And then unfortunately it suddenly like zipped away into the hill and. Oh no, they pull it out. They actually retrieve it. For a second, but it's like yanked out of their hands. And then they see it flying to the hill, you know.

Erin Elwood [01:28:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:02] The way.

Erin Elwood [01:28:02] And this was told by Brigham Young is this one. Well, I think so. It says that he. It was. Oh, no, there's another hands and moves rattling away into the hill. Oh, you.

Mark Elwood [01:28:11] No, no, that's a different one, but it's very similar to that one, which is Brigham Young's at the pulpit describing one that Porter Rockwell tells him where the chest suddenly moves away quickly with a rumbling noise, you know, and that is a treasure dig that Porter Rockwell is describing, which could be a Joseph Smith dig as well.

Erin Elwood [01:28:31] And I love. Brigham Young makes the rumbling sound from the pulpit. And I just like. I don't know. My imagination goes wild with that. That he's. He's mimicking the sound of the slippery treasure. Is it flesh?

Mark Elwood [01:28:40] And I wish we had that recording because then we would know what they sound like, but we don't.

John Dehlin [01:28:46] They.

Mark Elwood [01:28:46] But here's some kind of humorous ways that they've ended. I mean, it's just a fun way to. Kind of fun to look at the ways that some of them.

Erin Elwood [01:28:53] Cause they don't find what they're looking for. So, you know.

John Dehlin [01:28:56] So of the 41. Of the 41. Just to summarize maybe a bit of the 41 digs that you're counting here, and that's my number. You're. You're. You've only been able to find evidence that four were successful in terms of finding what they were looking for. And those. Those would be what, Again, just really

Mark Elwood [01:29:15] quickly, you have two stones and the gold plates.

John Dehlin [01:29:21] So his own. His own seer stones. Okay.

Mark Elwood [01:29:24] Yeah. And the gold plates.

Erin Elwood [01:29:26] The gold plates, John.

John Dehlin [01:29:27] Gold plates. Okay, you're counting that as good.

Mark Elwood [01:29:31] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:29:32] A successful dig. You've got a copy, a replica with you. Okay.

Mark Elwood [01:29:37] And then the.

John Dehlin [01:29:39] Should successful be in quotes there. I don't mean to be rude, but.

Mark Elwood [01:29:43] Well, I mean, that could be considered his most successful, depending on your perspective. Right. So.

John Dehlin [01:29:47] Okay. Okay. And then the fourth. The fourth is what?

Mark Elwood [01:29:52] The fourth would be this. This one. I really shouldn't count, but it's a box of watches that Joseph said he could hold it to his ear and it would tick for 40 rods. I don't even know what that means exactly, but they're really big. And he had. He was. According to Joshua Stafford, he was inebriated at the time, but he was like telling him, hey, I got these watches. I just need to borrow a horse.

John Dehlin [01:30:14] And.

Mark Elwood [01:30:15] And it's Interesting, because they're told to how? I think a few, maybe a week or so, apart from whenever Joseph Capron told his story about the gold watches on his property. So, you know, it could be the same thing, could be unrelated.

John Dehlin [01:30:31] Now, what about. Didn't he find like a needle in a haystack in front of Martin once? Or like a feather buried?

Erin Elwood [01:30:37] Oh, and they hit that. Well, those are the partial failures.

Mark Elwood [01:30:40] Well, I don't know. I, I didn't count that as a dig on this particular card, but I could count that as a win. In fact, you know, partial failures, like, I have a few items here. I have a piece of a treasure chest. Right. So this is something that he showed to Joshua Stafford as evidence that he

Erin Elwood [01:30:57] was successful at Sunstone. Mark had this little display of all the things that Joseph found on his sear, on his digs.

John Dehlin [01:31:03] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:31:03] Oh, he found socks.

Mark Elwood [01:31:04] Well, okay, that's another asterisk. But so, I mean, they were digging for salt and they found salty water, but it was put there as a prank by another, by an observer. So it doesn't really count.

John Dehlin [01:31:18] But.

Mark Elwood [01:31:19] And then I don't know how else John mentioned the feather. There's a lot of partial failures like that. Like, well, Joseph says there's a treasure chest. It's down. You're going to be digging, you're going to find a feather, and below that is the treasure chest. Well, they said they found the feather, but they didn't find the treasure chest. Got it.

Erin Elwood [01:31:39] But so, like the distinction you and I talked about, John, because you were like, they never found anything. And I was like, well, it depends on how you frame it. To the people of that time who wanted to believe, or actually they did believe. It's not just they wanted to believe, they did believe in magic and treasure digging. The things they found gave credence to Joseph, gave them faith to continue to follow Joseph. Like, it's really easy for us to look at it very skeptically, but the, they would not have said that they found nothing. They would have, they would have cited the feather. They would have cited the piece of chess that Joseph showed around town.

Mark Elwood [01:32:15] Yeah. And like even in the court records. Right. Or the, the statements coming from the court, I guess you have them saying like, well, did you find anything? And they're like, well, no, not exactly. You know, we were looking for gold and we did find a piece of rock that looked kind of like gold, you know, so they were like, they would kind of explain it way to themselves even. But they were still, they would still believe Joseph Right. So.

John Dehlin [01:32:36] And just to be clear, the, the, the Josiah stole silver mine would fall under partial failure because didn't they, didn't the shovels strike something?

Mark Elwood [01:32:48] But, but then I would count that as I probably would have counted that as a failure. I don't think they ever found the mine in any way. A partial failure would be like there's an account or Sarmus Turner, I believe they pull, they retrieve a chest, they see the chest but then there's some kind of pyrotechnic thing going on and explodes or vaporizes and they're like well that sucks. So we almost had it.

John Dehlin [01:33:11] Wow, that sounds cool.

Mark Elwood [01:33:13] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:33:14] And there's another one about like a treasure chest like going through the earth in front of their faces.

Mark Elwood [01:33:18] Like, like, well, this isn't a Joseph.

Erin Elwood [01:33:21] Right. But like this culture is. Whether it's Joseph or not, it's the same culture. Right. Joseph happened to like shoot off into Mormonism but at the time they're all like doing the same thing.

What a Treasure Dig Actually Looked Like

Mark Elwood [01:33:29] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:33:30] So describe the one with like the tremors.

Mark Elwood [01:33:33] Yeah, so it's kind of like tremors. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie. I, I never actually saw. I was too scared to watch it but I saw like pieces of it. And so the part that sticks my mind is where the guys with a jackhammer and hits the tremor underneath him or. And then it's like pulling it away. So in this story the, the they find a pot of. Was it pot coins or something?

Erin Elwood [01:33:54] Money pots.

Mark Elwood [01:33:55] Yeah, money pot. And they, they surround it with. This is what I'm actually researching. Could be Joseph. I forgot this one might. Or related to the Smith family. But they surround it with some magical things to keep it contained. And an onlooker is getting jealous because he's hoping that he's going to be rich one day and he's annoyed that they're finding something potentially. So he removes from the circle one of their magical items and it says the pot just like dashed away. You know, through the feel like you could see, you can see the dirt rising and falling behind it.

Erin Elwood [01:34:31] I love these stories.

Mark Elwood [01:34:32] The imagery school.

Erin Elwood [01:34:33] Then it gets like, it's not even history anymore. It's like psychology or something. It's like what did they see? Or you know, what, what was that? That. How do you explain that?

John Dehlin [01:34:42] And, and maybe we'll talk about this later but for me probably the most fascinating thing is is how many of the digs failed and yet people still believed he had powers. That is the most mind blowing thing of all because even Josiah stole. Doesn't he testify? He's like, no, we never found anything. But he definitely has powers.

Mark Elwood [01:35:02] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:35:03] Joseph could make them still believe in his powers when he actually never produced treasure is the, the most fascinating thing.

Erin Elwood [01:35:12] So isn't that, isn't that because you subscribe to the mythology that you believe the treasure is slippery and you believe that you'll get the treasure when God is ready for you to get the treasure? Right.

John Dehlin [01:35:25] And you believe that the stones have power and that Joseph has the power to use the stone. You believe all that, right?

Mark Elwood [01:35:31] Yeah. And you have enough faith, like, so they'd even pray, you know, it wasn't just like straight up magic. Like, they'd be praying, praying. And sometimes they have a Bible or, you know, things like this as well.

Erin Elwood [01:35:41] So, so I was thinking of an example. Josiah stole, bails Joseph out or pays his bond or. I don't remember the legal terminology. I think for back when. But the, the. There's another treasure digger in the. In contemporary, a woman, Mary Lambert. Yeah. I don't remember what city. But anyway, so she. You read her story. It's very. She's very clearly, in my opinion, you read this. Praying, like playing a con on this elderly man, rich man. She. She takes a thousand pounds from him and so she's brought to trial.

Mark Elwood [01:36:13] Dollars or pounds?

Erin Elwood [01:36:14] Sorry, I'm not even. I don't know. It must have been a thousand dollars. Sorry. Because, yeah, it's. It's America, not British currency. But anyway, it must be a thousand dollars. And she takes the money from him. But then he bails her out of prison.

Mark Elwood [01:36:28] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:36:29] Because he believes in her so strongly. But then the source repeats that the jury was so taken by her that they were about ready to start giving her money to find stuff for them.

Mark Elwood [01:36:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:41] That's awesome. Okay, well, this is just great stuff. I just love all this. So.

Mark Elwood [01:36:45] See, Nice work. And, John, you got into this a minute ago, actually, which I thought was pretty cool that, you know, like, when you're in, you're describing that circle and like, how scary maybe that might be. Like, I think it's helpful to kind of imagine what it might have been like to go on a treasure dig. I think that's. It's easy to kind of read a book and be like, oh, that's, that's silly. Those guys were silly. But you got to keep in mind that that wasn't necessarily the case. So I like to think of. In my own history, I think of a time where I was a boy Scout and I was in the woods and very scared. We were supposed to. I don't know why they did this to us, but we were supposed to stay the night out there in the woods for some merit badge.

Erin Elwood [01:37:29] Without a tent or anything?

Mark Elwood [01:37:30] Yeah, without a tent. And honestly, I think you're supposed to be by yourself. But we were already breaking the rules by having, like, a couple of us together. And at some point, you know, we got freaked out. We heard a noise and we all. We were all afraid to tell each other. We were freaked out. But we kind of got as close back to camp as we could. And we were all huddled around sitting on a.

Mark Elwood [01:37:51] A, like a stump, I guess, with our flashlights kind of shining out in every direction and just waiting it out, you know, and pretending we weren't nervous. But every time we heard a crunch of, you know, or a. Of a noise, we. It was probably just an animal, but our imaginations were running away. We'd hear or see bats, you know, going around. And you can imagine that in Joseph's time, if you're out in the woods, your only source of light is a lantern, you know, or like actual fire.

Mark Elwood [01:38:18] That there's going to be some kind of freaky stories, you know, when you leave. When you leave to go on this quest. You're waiting till it's very dark at night. It's supposed, you know, maybe it's a night that's supposed to be attributed, that there's going to be ghosts more prevalent or spirits from beyond that are there. And also you've. The conductor of the treasure, Dick has already told some kind of ghost story, essentially that, hey, there's gonna be. There's a dead guy out there, you know, he's protecting this chest. He. You know, it could be like a headless thing, could be a spooky, like, animal that people see or something, but some kind of guardian you've got to defeat.

Mark Elwood [01:38:59] Let's go out there, you know, and we'll dig for it. And if we're lucky and we were able to defeat this ghost, we'll be able to retrieve this artifact, right? So I like to picture it in those terms. And then when you're out there, you can kind of like say, well, these guys are digging and they have no way of knowing because they're supposed to keep this rule of silence. They have no way of knowing what the other people are thinking, and they want to be faithful. They don't want to be the one casting doubt, because if you do, you're the one that's going to Ruin the treasure dig. Right. And I don't know, I mean, I

John Dehlin [01:39:36] guess I remember when I was a Mormon youth growing up, we all, we all were going to go to a cemetery at night and there was a legend in my little hometown that like, there was a spirit that would come out at night at a certain gravestone. But if you, if it's dark and you believe in spirits and you're walking with friends and everybody's acting scared, it feels real. And I remember feeling creepy, weird, scary things. And then immediately, because I'd been taught that there's an adversary that can feel fill you as a spirit into your heart. Then you, then you walk away saying, I felt the adversary there. Because you felt super afraid.

Mark Elwood [01:40:18] And did you hum your favorite hymn?

John Dehlin [01:40:21] Yeah, exactly. And then you. Him and you feel better and. Yeah, I mean, I really like the idea that you're asking us to kind of try and put ourselves in their state of mind. Right.

Mark Elwood [01:40:33] Yeah. And, you know, keep in mind too, that not everybody that's going on the treasure dig was a believer. Like, they would literally just hire people to dig. There's some people that were like, I don't know, I just, it was a job. I was just digging and. But there were, more often than not, there was a lot of people that were believers seeking it.

Erin Elwood [01:40:48] Well, because it's too easy to just be like, well, these guys are uneducated or they were gullible or they were simple minded, you know, I mean, they had a faith in something that's different than what we understand. And if that was a sincerely held belief by them, you know, and then whether the conductors preying on that belief is a different question. Right. But there's no question in my mind every time I look at that map that Mark made. And that's just like scratching the surface that there are treasure digs all over the, you know, the eastern New England.

Mark Elwood [01:41:19] And it's still happening.

Erin Elwood [01:41:20] It's still happening.

Mark Elwood [01:41:21] We were just watching some YouTube videos of a guy who's searching for treasure right now.

Erin Elwood [01:41:26] I mean, it's definitely Spanish silver mine.

Mark Elwood [01:41:28] Yep. Of all things.

Erin Elwood [01:41:29] Yeah. And they tried dousing a psychic.

Mark Elwood [01:41:33] None of those things panned out.

Erin Elwood [01:41:34] The pendulum over the map thing.

Mark Elwood [01:41:36] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:41:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:37] That's awesome.

Mark Elwood [01:41:38] So, yep, that's. That's the gist of it and I guess.

Erin Elwood [01:41:43] Well, but so actually there is quite a bit of evidence, though. Even though, like, I hope people aren't thinking we're like, too apologetic. We just want you to be like, we want you to humanize the people in history and not just be dismissive or condescending to them and just try to understand them because it's fine to scream through the ether. He was a con man. But like my ancestors didn't know he was a con man. They believed him. And if I want to understand how, you know, they got to that point, I have to understand them. So I'm, you know, we're not. I, I shouldn't speak for Mark, for myself.

Erin Elwood [01:42:13] It's not like I'm trying to be apologetic. I'm just trying to. Well, yeah, okay, so I was gonna say. But to that point though, there are a lot of sources like the one I mentioned before that Mary Lambert, where you're like, wow, Ransford Rogers, such a fraud. Like, you could just like, it is, it is really bad. And John has opinions on this, but. But no stills on the story. Like the pyrotechnics get involved. You can tell they have co. Conspirators.

Mark Elwood [01:42:40] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:42:40] You know, Dig.

Mark Elwood [01:42:41] Yeah. Just different stories. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Specific one I should bring out, but basically, yeah. I mean, there's sometimes. Well, here, here's an example. Like, I guess like even the giant on the barn, you know, like, you could look at that as a spiritual apparition or of a past, you know, ancient race, you know, some giant spirit up on the barn. Or you could say, oh, that, you know, if you're critical, you say, oh, well, maybe that was just like Alvin dressed in a sheet, you know, or, you know, like trying to pretend he's like this tall guy. I don't know if people know. Probably no one knows that story, but just. I think that I don't know where I was going with that. I'm sorry.

Erin Elwood [01:43:29] Well, I was just saying that you can read these though, and see a pattern and you can see where there's fraud and that some of them are really, really obvious because the co. Conspirators are easily identified and they're. And they, and they. The digs get more elaborate. Right. And so like, there's pyrotechnics involved.

Mark Elwood [01:43:46] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:47] Well, I really like what you're saying, Aaron. And we need to really be clear when we talk about these sorts of things, what mindset we're wearing. Because there. And we talked about this right at the beginning of this episode with you guys. If we're in the mindset of like, well, I need to know if this stuff actually happened, what the probability or the likelihood is that this actually happened. Because, like, am I going to pay 10% of my income for my life? Am I going to get married and go on a mission and obey, commit to obey the church until I die? That's. That looking at the evidence from that point of view is going to make you sort of turn on your, you know, potentially your skeptical mind and have you say, now wait a minute, I need to know what really happened.

John Dehlin [01:44:31] What's the credibility of all these people involved? And when you talk about it in that way, you're probably going to be looking at it and talking about it very differently than if it's just like, hey, these are human beings that had hearts and minds and they had kids and grandkids and they, they believed. And. And in that sense, you always want to bring charity and empathy and understanding, unless they're con artists. And then you. You're allowed to maybe be a little bit. Have a little bit of contempt or frustration for them. But I love that mindset. Like, I don't love that ex Mormons or. Or critics sometimes just are dismissive and uncharitable and inaccurate in their descriptions of things when they're in the former mindset.

John Dehlin [01:45:17] And I love the idea of, just like you guys, you may not be necessarily orthodox Mormons anymore, but you clearly love this history and you love these characters and you love the stories, and it's not just a passion. You're having empathy in trying to understand.

John Dehlin [01:45:34] And I really love that you're giving us all that call to try and open our hearts, you know, and consider the joys and the humanity of looking at these stories from a more empathetic, curious lens.

Mark Elwood [01:45:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:50] Is that kind of what you're saying?

Erin Elwood [01:45:51] And also, you know, when you're raised in a faith that teaches you it's the one true church, and then you leave it like there's, I don't know, the idea of a capital T, truth that all humans need to subscribe to is something. I don't really want to get back into that kind of mindset. Right. And I think as ex Mormons, sometimes we can do that and just decide that this is the, you know, that there is a capital T, truth. And I just would like us not to do that. I don't think it's about Joseph, just in general, you know, it's like you have to. This is. This is the way to be an ex Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:46:25] So kind of fundamentalist in the other direction.

Erin Elwood [01:46:27] Yeah, we've all been there, done that. Let's try something else now.

John Dehlin [01:46:31] I love it. I love it. Calling us to a higher place, Aaron. I love it.

Mark Elwood [01:46:35] Trying.

Erin Elwood [01:46:36] I'm trying.

Mark Elwood [01:46:36] I'm just trying to draw cool stories. I don't know what you all are talking about.

Erin Elwood [01:46:40] Sorry. Mark just gets like, he just geeks out about the details.

John Dehlin [01:46:43] You need it all.

Erin Elwood [01:46:45] Aaron. He'll come up upstairs from his office and he'll be like, hey, Aaron, I just read a story where someone threw

Mark Elwood [01:46:51] a skunk into a treasure pit to end the dig. Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:46:55] And he's just having like the best time. Well, John, that's the end of the content that we had prepared. Would you like to ask any questions?

Audience Q and A Begins

John Dehlin [01:47:02] Oh, wow. Okay. So that's all.

Erin Elwood [01:47:04] That's what you guys, we're at open, you know, we have a lot of questions that or we have a lot of information in our heads if you have questions.

John Dehlin [01:47:13] Okay. Okay. So. So, yeah, man, I didn't realize I could ask questions. So I'm going to invite our audience right now. Anyone. We have, you know, we have 374 people tuned in live right now, either through Facebook or YouTube. So I'm going to invite audience members right now to type into their chat windows. We. This is really important because I think you guys are a little bit understated. I mean, maybe Dan Vogel knows more than you guys, maybe John Hamer. You know, there are going to be some people who might know more than you guys about some things, but you guys are historians as far as I'm concerned, and you're super knowledgeable.

John Dehlin [01:47:53] And so I just want to, I just want to call that out and give you guys credit and call on my audience right now to take this opportunity to ask if you've ever audience members had questions about the treasure digging, about the Seer Stone, about, you know, the Susquehanna area or Mr. Isaac Hale or any of that.

John Dehlin [01:48:17] I, I want to invite people to write those questions right now. I'm going to go ahead and start with just, you know, my, my biggest question. Do you think, do you, do you think that Emma, you know, when she was down in Susquehanna, is there any evidence when Joseph was down in that area with the stoles, do you know of any evidence whether or not Emma went on the digs just like Isaac did? And is there any evidence that Emma, like, really thought Joseph had these powers? And why, other than love or attraction, why it was that Isaac walked away feeling like Joseph was a charlatan, but his daughter walks away not only ignoring her dad's feelings about Joseph, but probably believing that he had powers. Anything, you know, about Emma's knowledge of and, or involvement in and or opinions about Joseph's Treasure digging.

Mark Elwood [01:49:14] Well, I will say, you know, it's. First of all, we wish we had the writings, like writings of Emma. You know, we really don't have that. So it's kind of hard to exactly get in her brain and know what she's thinking. But we don't really have any stories of her involved in the treasure digging and. But if you want to explore that, I. I should. I don't know if I should or not, but Eli Brady is definitely looking into that and has been doing some research in that vein. So he's a friend of mine and we mentioned him in the podcast earlier. So.

Erin Elwood [01:49:51] Yeah, so actually when you were looking at the slide you are preparing, we looked at the slide participants. I said, Emma, Emma's name isn't on here. Then he said, well, because we don't have any evidence of her really participating in digs. The only one I would note is that she goes with Joseph to retrieve the plates.

Mark Elwood [01:50:06] That's true on 1827.

Erin Elwood [01:50:09] And it depends on whether you consider that a treasure dig or not.

Mark Elwood [01:50:13] Yeah. And so, yeah, sorry. I usually. Right now I haven't thought a lot about Susquehanna for a while. Like, when I started the project, I got an overview of the entire project. So I'm kind of like trying to remember these things because I'm really focused in on the Manchester area at the moment, but I just don't. It is a good question on, like, why did she follow Joseph? And we do have a story where she seems to regret her decision to go to Manchester with Joseph. She's crying in the Saunders home. She was friends with Melissa Saunders, I

Erin Elwood [01:50:52] think,

Mark Elwood [01:50:54] and she's crying and says, I've been deceived. So there is that story. But we don't, you know, what is she deceived about? She deceived about her decision. You know, did Joseph trick her in some way or, you know, we just don't know the whole story there. You could let your imagination go there.

Erin Elwood [01:51:10] That honestly, is what's really fun about this, is that we do try to,

Mark Elwood [01:51:13] like a giant puzzle.

Erin Elwood [01:51:15] If the details are there, we try to stick by them, but there's so many gaps that we get to fill with our imaginations. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:22] Yeah. Okay. So you're saying you've been focusing on the time way before.

Mark Elwood [01:51:28] Well, just for this first volume and the second volume will mostly be in Manchester area as well.

Erin Elwood [01:51:34] Like, 1823 is the first time he goes to Hill Cumorah and he meets Moroni and he tries to remember. He tries to get the plates and Then it stopped and then he does. He goes to Susquehanna in 1825.

Mark Elwood [01:51:47] Yeah. So we won't get there till another book.

Erin Elwood [01:51:50] But.

Mark Elwood [01:51:51] But yeah, they're wonderful stories down there, like, even more wild.

Captain Kidd Legends and the Moroni Narrative

John Dehlin [01:51:56] So you talk. You talk a little bit about. In the, in this amazing book, you talk about the legend of, of Captain Kid. And you've got. You've got some really cool illustrations of, like, the pirates and, And I love it that you've got. You've. You've got the, the people digging and then someone gets shot and he falls into the. Into the pit and we're assuming maybe gets buried. Can you talk about really quickly. And this is going to be obvious for those who study this stuff, but probably not obvious for those who haven't. How kid plus a digger plus someone getting shot and buried, then leads to the spirit, and then that leads to the lore that then leads maybe even to the idea of a Moroni as a spirit guarding treasure is, you know, talk about any of that just to give people an understanding of stuff they may not really know anything about.

Mark Elwood [01:52:54] Okay. So with the kid tale, like, there's many, many variations of that, but essentially someone is killed and buried with the treasure. And by doing that, you're creating an angry spirit, or sometimes it's a volunteer. Like, they're like, I'll protect your treasure. You can kill me. So there's.

Mark Elwood [01:53:22] It just depends on the variation. But I think generally it's sort of the idea is the spirit is angry and is there and will frighten away those that are attempting to disturb them. And they're not necessarily guarding the treasure, but there are other versions where, yeah, it's straight up like they're guarding the treasure, and unless you do certain things, then they're not going to let you have it.

Mark Elwood [01:53:50] With Moroni, I mean, there's sort of a. There's definitely some connections between the story of Kid and Moroni. But even with Moroni, there's a. What's it called? Like, folklore. Not folklore, like a story that's not very well documented where he is, like, basically killed on the spot. And it's, you know, someone said to somebody who said to somebody who? Somebody. And it goes back to Justice Smith, allegedly. Right. Where he describes that, yeah, he was killed there and is in fact guarding the treasure in that way as well. So I, you know, that's. No one would. No historian would count that as, like, real history, I don't think. But it is sort of a tale that's passed down.

Erin Elwood [01:54:35] But going back to that, it doesn't matter what's true or false. I mean, it matters. It's true or false. But for purposes of narrative building, it doesn't matter what's true or false, because what mattered is that everybody believed it to be true and then decided to act upon it. Right. And so everyone's repeating the story of Captain Kidd, and I mean, it gets really ludicrous because we, you know, drove by the spot where the Captain Kid dig was in Susquehanna. And it's beautiful little field, but it's really far inland. Like, to imagine that a pirate ship, well, I mean, they got in the small ship and went up, but like, to imagine they went that far inland, to me seems like on its face, ridiculous personally.

Erin Elwood [01:55:11] Or to believe that there's a Spanish silver mine in Vermont, you know, also kind of ridiculous. But the people believed it and they made their decisions based on that.

Mark Elwood [01:55:21] So, yeah, they wanted to believe it too, because it gave them a. A chance at life. You know, like, if you find treasure, then your life will become different. You know, it's like playing the lottery.

John Dehlin [01:55:32] Right? They were super. A lot of them were super poor.

Mark Elwood [01:55:34] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:55:35] Tell me how many minutes you guys have? I want to make sure I manage the questions based on how much time you have.

Erin Elwood [01:55:40] If we could be done in 30 minutes, that'd be ideal, but up to. Up to an hour if we're, like, really into it.

John Dehlin [01:55:45] Okay, so. So, okay, so we'll shoot for 2:30 my time. About. Is that right? 4:30 your time?

Mark Elwood [01:55:54] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [01:55:55] Or no, wait, yes, 4:30 our time.

Mark Elwood [01:55:57] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] Yeah. One of the real. One of the real aha. Moments that I had. And you guys can tell me if I'm totally missing the boat here. Once I started studying the treasure digs a little bit, I realized that the core Book of Mormon narrative seems to just like the structural narrative seems to grow out of the treasure digs. Because what do regular treasure digs and the Book of Mormon narrative have in common? Okay, you've got treasure. You've got treasure that's buried. It's in a hill. You've got to search for it. It's guarded by. It's guarded by some type of spirit that you have to engage with.

John Dehlin [01:56:39] And then there's a seer that finds it who's got some sort of magical device that helps them find it. And this idea of slippery treasure that can't be found. There's Joseph. You know, he's supposed to get the plates, but then he can't get the plates. And, you know, and. And over time, you just realize Wait a minute. Maybe the Book of Mormon narrative, you know, just comes out of like God telling Joseph through an angel. This is a story that happened. But if you have a more naturalistic worldview, it's just like, wait a minute, Joseph learned about all this treasure digging stuff with spirits and sears and digs and slippery treasure.

John Dehlin [01:57:20] Wow. It just would make a lot more sense. And I'm not asking you to pine on this, but is it fair to say there's pretty direct structural parallels between the basic treasure digging kind of structure and what ends up being the Book of Mormon narrative?

Mark Elwood [01:57:39] Right. I mean, they're definitely linked and it just depends on how you look at it. Right. If you're skeptic, then it's very much like pretty clear that one thing leads to the other in the way you've described. But if you're a believer, you know, you can say, well, because, I mean, at this point they're definitely saying Joseph did do treasure digging. Well, what was the point of it? You know, why was God preparing him in this way? Right. He's, he's learning new abilities and kind of getting in touch with the spiritual world. And, you know, maybe even, you know, I'm putting on my apologist hat.

Mark Elwood [01:58:12] But maybe Moroni did appear as a, as a toad like creature at first just to kind of get him comfortable with the idea. You know, I just. That's just an idea. But so I would say, yeah, there's direct alliance for sure. And Anything else you want to say? No. All right.

Salamanders and Amphibian Guardians in Folklore

John Dehlin [01:58:34] I think that, I think that a lot of our listeners will be familiar with the salamander, the white salamander, but they would have. That. They would likely think, well, wait a minute, that that turned out to be Mark Hoffman's forgery. So let's remove amphibians from the Joseph Smith narrative. Explain to us just really quickly, even if you already have. I mean, you said Lumen Walters had a stuffed toad. But how do amphibians play into, you know, a credible. How do amphibians have a credible association with Joseph Smith?

Mark Elwood [01:59:06] So the main account, it comes from Willard Chase and he's relating an early telling of sort of what he heard from Joseph, which is that there was a toad like creature that came out of the box and turn became a man. Right. So it's not actually a toad. It's like maybe like a hobgoblin or something, like some. However we would picture it today, it's probably different. But just for simplicity, I usually just use a toad.

Mark Elwood [01:59:38] And so Mark Hoffman just didn't make that. You know, just like everything he did, he thought of. You know, he found examples and just kind of twisted them a little bit. So that's a very early account, but there's not. That's not the only one. We have versions of it evolving later on.

Mark Elwood [01:59:58] Is it Orlando Saunders. Yeah, Orlando, I think, talks about the toad becoming, like, really, really big and, like, glittering eyes and smacking Joseph and he rolls down the hill and wakes up and then at midday or something. So, you know, the story. It's a big fish story, gets bigger, and there are. Very cool.

John Dehlin [02:00:20] I just realized that, like, witches, I guess, toads are often associated with witches and witchcraft. So it's kind of in this broader kind of folk magic narrative a little bit.

Erin Elwood [02:00:30] Right.

Mark Elwood [02:00:31] Well. And it is. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:00:32] Oh, go ahead.

Mark Elwood [02:00:32] Oh, no, go ahead. I didn't have anything.

John Dehlin [02:00:34] You got the super cool sketch of, like, chiromancy and. And palm reading. What it. Tell it. And again, it's part of a story. In one of the chapters in your book. What does palm reading have to do with Joseph Smith?

Mark Elwood [02:00:51] Well, there's early stories. Christopher Stafford is telling a story about how Joseph was reading his palm and told him that he wouldn't live very long. And he was found that humorous, I guess, giving the account later in life.

Erin Elwood [02:01:05] He was very old. It was many years later.

Mark Elwood [02:01:07] Yeah. I don't know how old I've been.

Erin Elwood [02:01:08] Yeah, I think he was pretty old at the time. He. What's the date on that one, John? I don't have.

John Dehlin [02:01:12] Yeah, it's March, 1885.

Mark Elwood [02:01:14] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:01:14] Yeah. So 65 years later, he's still. Still kicking.

Mark Elwood [02:01:20] Yeah, but. And I guess, you know, that's sort of like a harmless kind of magic. And I think the, you know, I wanted to kind of do that whole progression thing as well. And so that's why I was like, okay, I'm gonna take that story and stick it in even before I have a dousing story. But we know that he would palm read, and I believe. I think we have stories about Lucy. I can't remember offhand, but there's palm readers. A lot of people probably did that. So fortune telling, dream interpretation, those are all, like, early magic things, but not what we would consider probably harmless today.

Erin Elwood [02:01:57] Well, so Lucy, definitely. We have a source of her doing dream reading.

Mark Elwood [02:02:00] Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. Rockwell's would do that. Porter Rockwell told a story to Elizabeth Kane, and she wrote it down, and Brigham Young was there as well. So we definitely have some stories like that where they. Yeah. Where they'd be trying to figure out what the dreams meant and where. Where they should be digging based off those dreams.

John Dehlin [02:02:24] So you've got this really good quote. You know, a lot of times we're led to think when, when we're trying to make the Book of Mormon look just that it could never have been created by a human. I think maybe we've been taught to think of Joseph Smith as being incapable of doing something really brilliant. You've got this really great quote on page 25 from, from Lucy. I'm sure you know the quote that I'm talking about. Do you want me to read it?

Erin Elwood [02:02:54] Sure.

Mark Elwood [02:02:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:54] It says, never mind. About my son Joseph, for the boy will be able. For the boy will be able some of these fine days to buy the whole of Palmyra and all the folks in it. You don't, you don't know what a brain my boy has under that old hat. And of course, it's not unique for moms to be proud of their kids, but she clearly felt like Joseph Smart. No?

Mark Elwood [02:03:22] Yeah, but it's interesting because you can compare that with other statements where they're like, man, Joseph, he was not bright. But you know who was bright was his mom. His mom, she must be the one behind the Book of Mormon. Or other times, it's the dad. The dad is the one who, you know, did the Book of Mormon or the Gold Bible, you know, so we'll have statements that really conflict all the time. And I think, you know, you just try to take them at face value and, and, and use the information you can from them.

Money Digging Culture and Lucy Mack Smith

John Dehlin [02:03:51] So, yeah, and I'm. And I'm just trying to call out some of the things I really loved about this book. In the same chapter, you've got, you've got an excerpt from the Windsor Vermont where it talks about money digging. And I guess it would be easy to think that everybody back then was, was, was superstitious or into folk magic and that everyone was treasure digging. It would almost seem like that's what the church might want us to think is that most people were doing it. It wasn't so weird or so bad. But I love this quote on, On Money digging that basically says we are sorry to observe, even in this enlightened age, so prevalent a disposition to credit the accounts of the marvelous.

John Dehlin [02:04:38] Even the frightful stories of money being hidden under the surface of the earth and enchanted by the devil or Robert Kidd are received by many of our respectable fellow citizens as truths. We had hoped that such a shameful undertaking would never have been acted over again in our country till the following event occurred not long ago in our vicinity. And to me, what that shows is that there was a broad general understanding that this stuff was shady and. And even illegal. And it's really cool to. And even Benjamin Franklin calls that out in the early 1700s, if I remember correctly. Any. Anything you guys want to add about that?

Mark Elwood [02:05:21] Yeah, that's. I mean, that is why I included that. That there's people at that time that were definitely, you know, calling it out. But there was others newspapers printed that said this is a real deal. Like, someone so and so found some gold out here. So you just keep that in mind, that whoever's writing the article obviously is going to state their opinion too well.

Erin Elwood [02:05:46] And Porter Rockwell said that that everybody was digging, but Joseph just did it openly. And I don't think it. He means actually everybody was. But it was a calm, you know, in their community. It was pretty common. But, you know, Joseph did it openly, whereas other people would be ashamed to admit it. Like, the dig on Miners Hill takes place on Abner Cole's property, and yet Abner Cole is such a hostile, skeptical source. So, like, did he allow the dig to happen and maybe even helped fund it, or was he supportive of it and then he got embarrassed, you know, and then that's why he became hostile?

Erin Elwood [02:06:19] Or did he think it was a joke all along? But he's like, whatever. They can dig on my land. I mean, like, what was the motivation there for Abner Cole to be so hostile and yet allow money diggers on his property?

Erin Elwood [02:06:32] And then the last thing I'd say is that it's easy to make it like a class or education thing, but that's really not the case. Not in neat lines, anyway. You know, so Chamberlain, who funds.

John Dehlin [02:06:42] Oh, yeah, I do that sometimes.

Mark Elwood [02:06:44] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:06:44] Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, The. The dig at the Markle farm that was done with the dowsing rod was funded by Chamberlain. Chamberlain was wealthy, educated. He was a state senator or state rep of some kind.

Mark Elwood [02:06:58] Well, it could be. I mean. Sorry, it's not really specifically. It could. It could be, but in general, he was funding him in the area to look for an iron chest, so.

Erin Elwood [02:07:08] Okay, well, so Chamberlain. But the point is, Chamberlain was educated, had political influence, you know, social standing, class, etc. Josiah stole. Same thing. I mean, he's funding or even like

Mark Elwood [02:07:20] Martin Harris, who I don't think really funds Joseph or whatever, but he. I mean, obviously he funds the Book

Erin Elwood [02:07:26] of Mormon, which is better that he runs the treasure digging.

Mark Elwood [02:07:28] Yeah, but, you know, you could look at him. Well, he was Fairly well respected. He. Other than people were like, yeah, but he's a. He can see. What does he say? He's a great believer in spooks or whatever. So there's some of these. Or will, I would say even William Stafford, you know, like he's one of the first peop. I think first people along that area. They named Stafford Road after him. You know, he can't be just like a. He's probably respected enough and yet he is involved in it and not and. And admits to it, which is interesting.

John Dehlin [02:08:03] But so educated and wealthy people could. Could still believe in. In this sort of stuff and be involved in it.

Mark Elwood [02:08:10] Definitely for the most part it was four people. So.

John Dehlin [02:08:16] And it was. It was looked down upon by maybe some of the more established parts of society. Fair to say.

Mark Elwood [02:08:22] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:24] I learned about Lumen Walters first from Grant Palmer, I believe in insider's view. Now, was there a question, Is it sometimes some places he's referred to as just Lumen or just Walters and there's some question about whether that. That is the Lumen Walters. I guess that was part one. And then part two is like, is there any suggestion that Joseph hung out with Lumen Walters and like was formally tutored in any way? You guys may have already addressed this, but I just wanted to get it clear.

Mark Elwood [02:08:52] Let's see the first half of that question.

Erin Elwood [02:08:57] The man with a dark colored stone.

Mark Elwood [02:08:59] Yeah, I think that's what you're. Yeah, maybe that's what you're hinting at there, John, is. There's a Fayette Lapham account. There's several accounts that talk about like a magician coming to town or like somebody. But they don't name them.

Mark Elwood [02:09:14] Brigham Young talks about a certain man who could swear very. You know, he would swear very good. And. But he doesn't name him as Lumen. But I think we've kind of combined these accounts. And not just me, but like lots of historians have said, well, perhaps this is this, this person that we're talking about where Joseph sees a dark colored stone or he looks in a dark colored stone where a certain man was looking for lost items. Perhaps this is also the same person that we're talking about here as Lumen Walters.

Mark Elwood [02:09:49] And then so that's kind of. We do have stories about Lumen Walters. We have other stories and some of those have been combined to. To all be the same individual, if that makes sense. The other half, the question was, was

Erin Elwood [02:10:03] he ever formally tutored? Well, no. So because Luma Walters definitely was around, he was called in to help Find the plates. Right. Is that specifically named Lumen or is that the magician?

Mark Elwood [02:10:13] I think they don't name him. I have to look. But I think at that point it's just a certain. Again, like a person that comes down. I don't think we name him as Walter.

Erin Elwood [02:10:22] Who's the guy who. They're in the tavern and says, I can't find the plates, but this is a guy who will.

Mark Elwood [02:10:27] Oh, yeah, that. That was supposed to be. See again. Now, see, in my own mind, I've started to combine these sources, but that is supposed to be Walters. I think I'd have to double check on that too. But the. What was the other part?

Erin Elwood [02:10:46] What's the. Ever formally tutor. So, because the idea is like, if, like Lumen passed the mantle, did Joseph. Right?

Mark Elwood [02:10:52] Yeah. And that's the.

Erin Elwood [02:10:52] That's actually the story was told by Brigham Young.

Mark Elwood [02:10:55] No, no. Abner Cole is again the guy that's kind of telling this story. He says that the mantle of Walters fell on Joseph and that's. That's Abner. Cool. So if we believe. Again, if we believe or if we can assume that Abner Cole had firsthand experience with this and he's not just writing an angry, you know, newspaper article. Perhaps he is telling us something that he saw, you know. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:28] And this is. This is probably the million dollar question. Do you, from your readings, what do you conclude? And it's impossible to know. So I'm. This borders. This would be speculation, but it's just your best hunch. When Joseph is. There's kind of.

John Dehlin [02:11:46] There's sincere believer. Let's say option one is sincere believer. Option two is complete fraud. Option three is kind of Dan Vogel's pious fraud as it relates to the treasure digging that Joseph Smith did during the times that you cover in this book, do you get the sense that Joseph really thought that these stones had power? That he really thought that he had power, that when he took people out and they're. The shovel is clanking on something. Joseph really believes that they're about to hit a chest and that then when the treasure gets removed, that Joseph really believes that spirits are carting the treasure away. Do you have any reason to opine on option A, B or C, or do you guys just don't even want to go there in terms of opining or speculating?

Mark Elwood [02:12:40] Let's see. I. Well, I generally kind of subscribe to pious fraud anyway, but where he's, you know, doing things for the right reason or he's doing things to try to get to an end.

Erin Elwood [02:12:56] That he believes is justified.

Mark Elwood [02:12:57] Yeah. But as far as what is he, what. You know, we can't unfortunately be in Joseph's mind either. And, you know, it's a shame he didn't tell more of his own stories because we're relying on outsiders and we're relying on people that are telling these stories that, that they were unsuccessful. So I think, you know, it seems that Joseph indicates. I mean, it definitely seems like he, he had others believed, you know, that he really was seeing what he saw. Like Josiah stole, like we mentioned before.

Erin Elwood [02:13:39] But I mean, he had, he had success. Yeah, of a kind. And that's why he had a following. I mean, I'm not talking about like in the future with Book of Mormon things, but there were reasons people came to him. Like, you know, he was taking away Sally's clientele because he was being successful to the point that people speculated whether he was hiding. Right. I'm like, oh yeah, that's true. People actually speculated that he would steal things and hide them so that he could then find them because he was so successful at finding things. And we don't have a lot of those stories of just like finding, you know, I don't know, missing flower or whatever, whatever domestic item it was.

Erin Elwood [02:14:17] Those don't get retold to where we can see that. But I think that. What was I going to say about the pious fraud versus whatever? I think it's just that we don't have anything in Joseph's own words. Everything is secondhand. And so then even the things we have in Joseph's own words, like where he says that he's going to give up digging after the glass liquor trial, that is still told secondhand.

Mark Elwood [02:14:45] Yeah. So we just have to take the stories as they are again. And hopefully you make your own, you know, you make your own decision based off of the evidence in front of you.

John Dehlin [02:14:59] Yeah, yeah. And. And I've, you know, I mentioned in, in a, in one of the tiktoks that I think I made at one point that, you know, there is an account of Joseph Smith saying to his dad, Isaac, or his father in law, Isaac, I. I never could really see anything in the, in the stone. I'm sorry, I'm going to stop. I'm not going to do it anymore. And you guys are saying that's a secondhand account? I guess, I guess there's. I would say maybe all, not all secondhand accounts. Tell me how you guys think about some of these sources. Not all secondhand accounts are equal.

John Dehlin [02:15:36] Because if we know that, if we know that Joseph was embarrassed about the treasure digging and that he tried to like dismiss it or downplay it or hide it for a long time. If we know that the church has been embarrassed about treasure digging for a long time. If we know that at some point he got in trouble with the law and then had to stop it. And then if we, and if we know that he later says, I was involved in, in, you know, sketchy activities and I'm embarrassed by some of my early behaviors, I, I'm an imperfect guy, then if there's a secondhand account that has Joseph saying, I could never see anything in the first place crying in front of Isaac, it's like, yeah, that all seems to fit.

John Dehlin [02:16:17] And so I, you know that that secondhand account seems like it's like, it's. I would be more inclined to want to look at that as credible than, than something that seemed to have no real grounding in reality. Is it, is it fair to, to kind of hold that second hand account with a little bit of credulity?

Mark Elwood [02:16:37] Yeah, I mean, you're probably talking to the wrong guy here because I love any secondhand or third hand account even.

Erin Elwood [02:16:46] But see, so this is a difference. Mark is like one person said this one time and he loves it. And I'm like, yeah, but that's just a difference in approach. But this, that second hand account is corroborated by others, right?

Mark Elwood [02:16:59] Yeah, that's. If you're doing this in a better way than, than I do, you actually compare. I mean, I, I do this as well, but it's not my main focus. But it's like you say, okay, well where's the similarities that this, this source is saying this thing and he's very anti Joseph or at least is now at this point. And then you have these other guys that are like very pro Joseph. Where do they overlap? And those, those are definitely true. And then you have to look at the other elements that they're seeing.

Erin Elwood [02:17:28] So that one is Isaac Hale, but then Peter Ingersoll, William Stafford.

Mark Elwood [02:17:33] Well, yeah, Ingersoll is reporting that story.

Erin Elwood [02:17:37] Right, right.

John Dehlin [02:17:38] And he helped Joseph move. Right?

Erin Elwood [02:17:41] Right. So it's, I mean, it's firsthand to Pete. Okay. I guess where I would take the, the distinction. And again, this is me, not Mark. Is that Peter Ingersoll is, it's a first hand account for Peter Ingersoll because he witnessed the event, he saw what happened, and he's just reporting what Joseph said. But did Joseph honestly feel those things? Did John? Was Joseph expressing the truth? I mean, there's no way really to know, but, you know, or was Joseph just telling Isaac Hill what Isaac wanted to hear? Yeah, so that's like, the way to look at that. And. And I'm not trying to say that account didn't happen or that it didn't. You know, that. I mean, that Joseph didn't admit to this. It's just a way of trying to analyze that.

John Dehlin [02:18:21] I'm being repetitive here, but I just don't like it when, you know, and I. I think Dan McClellan's awesome, and I'm grateful for him and he deserves tons of respect. I don't like it when. When apologists just dismiss an account. It's like, oh, and they didn't like Joseph. So. So can't. You can't use the source at all.

Erin Elwood [02:18:38] No, no, no. That's too easy. That's way too easy. I mean, you need to just think about. Okay, well, Peter Ingersoll is not anti Joseph. Peter Ingersoll witnessed this. You really. You think he is?

Mark Elwood [02:18:48] It depends on the story.

Erin Elwood [02:18:49] It depends on the story. Okay. He witnesses this.

Mark Elwood [02:18:52] He's definitely anti Joseph Senior and Alvin. And then perhaps he's listed as an early follower of Joseph by someone. I can't remember who offhand, but. So it's kind of.

Erin Elwood [02:19:04] Maybe he believes Joseph early follower, Joseph the prophet. Like.

Mark Elwood [02:19:08] Yeah, but it's. The line is not. It's like, really fuzzy. Like, where. Early believer of Joseph and Mormonism and late believer in Joseph. Treasure digging, you know, like, those are not very clear lines.

Erin Elwood [02:19:21] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [02:19:21] So, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:22] That's awesome. I. I loved in the chapter with. With

Erin Elwood [02:19:30] Sally.

John Dehlin [02:19:30] With Sally. Sally Chase. Right.

Erin Elwood [02:19:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:33] Like, I loved. And you know, you. You draw her so beautifully, and she's got her eyes, and I'm almost wanting she. To be an early romance with. With Joseph. I don't know if you had that maybe in your mind a little bit, but that was fun to just kind of imagine. Now, what's Joseph doing alone with her? Whether looking at the hat and looking in stones and gazing deeply into each other's eyes. You know, it was fun to think about that. Is there anything you want to say about that?

Mark Elwood [02:20:02] I mean, just that I think that Joseph would have been. He would have been influenced by her as a peer. And we know Joseph, you know, we know his sexual drive later is pretty intense. So I don't see it unreasonable that he found her fascinating in other ways. But.

Erin Elwood [02:20:24] But also, there's other girls, though Alvin's closer in age to her. Yeah. So I. I actually think she and Alvin had a thing. More than I have, like, a lot of theories about this. This, actually. But that being said, you know, there were. It's a small town. There's not that many people. I mean, it's like everyone in high school dates everyone at some point. Right. Like in a small high school. So who knows?

John Dehlin [02:20:49] I'm gonna. I'm gonna call it that. That. That Aaron Elwood's additional contribution. She's gonna write the historical fiction romance novel of Joseph and Sally.

Erin Elwood [02:20:59] All right, Done.

John Dehlin [02:21:01] Yeah. No.

Erin Elwood [02:21:02] No one wants to read anything about romantic novel with Joseph Smith.

Mark Elwood [02:21:05] Yeah, sorry.

Erin Elwood [02:21:06] Like, a believer doesn't want to read that. An ex Mormon doesn't want to read that.

John Dehlin [02:21:09] You haven't. That's because you haven't written it yet, Aaron.

Erin Elwood [02:21:13] No, but just knowing his.

Mark Elwood [02:21:16] Where it goes.

Erin Elwood [02:21:17] Yeah. His future abuses.

Mark Elwood [02:21:19] No one wants that.

John Dehlin [02:21:20] Yes, yes, yes. It's. It kind of can make you sick to your stomach knowing how it ends.

Erin Elwood [02:21:25] It's hard to make this one for a second imagine it.

John Dehlin [02:21:30] It's hard to get excited about a youthful romance with Joseph once you know how it ends.

Erin Elwood [02:21:36] Right, Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:38] Yeah, that makes sense. People are asking about Alvin. Somebody. Somebody wrote. Please tell us the rest of the story about Alvin in a sheet on the roof.

Mark Elwood [02:21:48] You want to say that was me just speculating. I mean, the story is that there. It's actually a story Martin Harris is telling. He's just listing some reasons why they were unsuccessful. And one of the three reasons he lists is that a giant appeared on the barn and scared the diggers away. I was just speculating if it was. If you take it from a skeptical view, you don't say, okay, there really was a giant on the barn. So.

Erin Elwood [02:22:12] So how do you explain that?

Mark Elwood [02:22:14] Yeah, like, you can, you know, maybe it was. It was. It could have been anything.

Erin Elwood [02:22:19] But I think you're drawing that in volume two, right?

Mark Elwood [02:22:21] Yeah, I am. So I take it I am drawing that story. So again, I'm not drawing what I believe. I'm drawing what the accounts say. So I am including that scene in volume two, and in it, there will be literally like a giant on the barn. And we say giant. I generally think how they did back then, which from other sources, that they're large people, not like massive giants. We're talking, you know, like the story about Joseph trying to put the urim and thumb to his. His face, but he can only look through one lens because they're so big. Right. So that's the end of that story. It's not literally Alvin, but you're just

Erin Elwood [02:22:59] trying to think about, like, how, you know, if. If this was actually like, some kind of planned strategy.

Mark Elwood [02:23:06] Conspiracy.

Erin Elwood [02:23:07] Conspiracy. Then. Yeah, was. You know, was Alvin in the sheet on the. Because that's a different way to tell all these stories. So if someone who wants to go out and just go for broke with Joseph was a con man and illustrate it that way. There you go.

Mark Elwood [02:23:18] That would be cool, too. But that's not what I'm gonna do, so.

Artistic Influences and Illustration Choices

John Dehlin [02:23:21] All right, Mark writes. Here's my question. Was Mark influenced by Spiegelman's Mouse? No idea. What? Mark.

Mark Elwood [02:23:28] That's a recently banned book in Tennessee. Did you know that?

Erin Elwood [02:23:32] Yeah, yeah, my home state. I think I have it upstairs.

Mark Elwood [02:23:36] You do? And Mouse, too, right?

Erin Elwood [02:23:38] Yeah, I've got both of them. Good book.

Mark Elwood [02:23:41] Yeah. But I don't. I don't know.

Erin Elwood [02:23:43] I guess my.

Mark Elwood [02:23:46] My main books that I'm influenced by, I have over here. And I would say I. I really like Hellboy. I mean, this is not at all related. And it's very. I mean, other than it's like magic, you know, And I love the style of Hellboy.

John Dehlin [02:24:02] Is that DC or Marvel? I'm trying to remember.

Mark Elwood [02:24:04] No, that's Star course. Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:24:06] Right.

Mark Elwood [02:24:07] Yeah, it's. Yeah. Sorry. I'm really not a comic guy. I just. This was a. I'm a concept artist, and I decided that, you know, comics are excellent way to tell a story because you can relate so much information visually and graphic, you know, graphically and with words is just a great way to do that. So I'm treating it almost like storyboards. And then there's some other. I don't know, like, what's the main one? No, there's a graphic novel called Noah that I really like the art style in. But what else? Anything else?

Erin Elwood [02:24:46] Well, I know that Mark did a lot of research to see, like, what did people in that time imagine demons to look like?

Mark Elwood [02:24:52] Oh, yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:24:53] Because we can all picture demons today, but we have, like, CGI and, like, prosthetics, and we've all watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but what did it.

Mark Elwood [02:25:02] I don't know. We're dating ourselves.

Erin Elwood [02:25:03] Everyone has. Right. And so in 1820, if Joseph thought of a demon, what did that look like? So Marcus spent a lot of time looking at that kind of thing is like, what did people picture? The fantastical and the magical and the divine to look like? Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:22] Joe writes, what was going on with the Smith family parchments and of Jupiter talisman.

Mark Elwood [02:25:29] Yeah, that's really good. So out of. Unfortunately, there is no story that we have and if anyone knows one, please send it to me. But the, that includes those magical implements. You know, we do have them like we talked about killing an animal with. And it could be I'm going to draw it with a Mars dagger.

Erin Elwood [02:25:49] Right.

Mark Elwood [02:25:49] Which is another magical implement that was supposed to be have belong to Smith. But it makes sense that those things were used and I just wish that there was, it was specifically called out in a, an account. What is going on with them though?

Erin Elwood [02:26:06] So Lumen Walter supposedly.

Mark Elwood [02:26:08] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:26:08] Made the parchments.

Mark Elwood [02:26:10] That's one theory. Or like someone else. But there is, there's enough there to, to not like I, I, I think that they did own them. And, and like I said, I wish there was stories about how they used

Erin Elwood [02:26:24] them or what they did with them. Right.

Mark Elwood [02:26:26] Yes, but, and you can do, I mean there's been a lot of research on what all the part, I don't know if you're asking like what all the parts mean on there, like all the little diagrams and things, but there is some of that information out there.

Erin Elwood [02:26:41] And, but generally it comes from the Magus.

Mark Elwood [02:26:44] Yeah. And other.

Erin Elwood [02:26:46] Which is a magical book.

Mark Elwood [02:26:47] Other from you know, European grimoire type books. But they're supposed to protect you or generally like the Jupiter talisman, I think is supposed to grant power. You're supposed to have power over others. Which is kind of interesting that Joseph was supposed to have had that. And then the, the laymans, the parchments were protective in nature or to help you receive a visitation from a spirit. So.

Erin Elwood [02:27:12] And so one of them is called the Holiness of the Lord parchment, which I find so fascinating.

Mark Elwood [02:27:16] Oh yeah. And it's, you know, because of the

Erin Elwood [02:27:18] Lord Right the way again that these things blend. And so holiness to the Lord is a very like sacred thing for LDS belief. And you know, it's on the temple, but at the same time it's on this parchment. And so it repeated thrice. It is repeated thrice, yes.

Mark Elwood [02:27:36] Yeah, we definitely, I mean there's enough connections to say to not doubt that those were involved. It's just I, it's hard for me to figure out exactly how.

Erin Elwood [02:27:45] I gave you this for Christmas.

Mark Elwood [02:27:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:27:48] Is that a Jupiter talisman?

Erin Elwood [02:27:49] Yeah, our toad was holding it. I forgot.

John Dehlin [02:27:51] I love it.

Mark Elwood [02:27:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:27:53] Joseph wore one of those and believed that it gave him special powers or at least wanted people to believe that it gave him special powers.

Mark Elwood [02:28:01] Yeah. We, again, we don't know any story related to it, but that seems to be the case that he had it.

John Dehlin [02:28:09] One person that may have joined us late asks which of you two actually did the illustrations? And that's, that's not Aaron, that's Mark. Mark Elliott, who did the.

Erin Elwood [02:28:19] I'm getting a lot of credit being on this podcast with him, but the reality is that this is like Mark's baby.

Mark Elwood [02:28:25] Well, Aaron's much better with words and as you can tell, she's a better speaker.

John Dehlin [02:28:29] So I like, to Aaron, you're, you're Moses and she's your Aaron.

Mark Elwood [02:28:34] That's nice.

Erin Elwood [02:28:35] No, but I mean it definitely was a family project. Our son is with a neighbor right now, but.

Mark Elwood [02:28:42] But he could tell you more about Joseph Smith than anybody.

Erin Elwood [02:28:45] I honestly think he knows a lot more about Joseph Smith than I think.

Mark Elwood [02:28:49] Well, let's. Yeah, be careful.

John Dehlin [02:28:52] A lot of people have super Mormon nerds in all the best ways. Right.

Erin Elwood [02:28:55] Yeah. And so, but no, it's a family project, you know, because we would take trips to Kirtland, Nauvoo, Palmyra, and you know, Mark will, you know, be down in his office, you know, illustrating and you know, we all have to pitch in, so.

John Dehlin [02:29:11] And also you're, I mean you're, you're, you, you work and Aaron and I would say you're able to financially support. So, and so do you like you both do.

Erin Elwood [02:29:23] But yeah, yeah, no, I mean this happened in our life where, you know, right place.

Mark Elwood [02:29:27] Right.

Erin Elwood [02:29:27] I'm a, I, I work. Mark is a stay at home dad. But like we tried doing the dual income thing for a minute or you know, working parent thing after our son was born and it was really hard. It is really hard.

John Dehlin [02:29:38] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:29:39] My hat off to anyone who can make it work. But we were like, you know, looked our finances. You know what, Mark, if you want to stay home, you can. And that coincided with the searstone coming out and it just.

Mark Elwood [02:29:48] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:29:49] You know.

Mark Elwood [02:29:49] And I do take on freelance computer rendering, like spacecraft stuff, which is completely different. Right. But honestly, mostly I'm doing this now

Erin Elwood [02:30:00] and it's really when he's not, you know, parenting, which is a full time

Mark Elwood [02:30:03] job, which is super fun.

John Dehlin [02:30:05] I want to get to how people can both buy this book and support future books. I'm going to get there in just one second. There was a question of whether Joseph found any real treasure. We've already kind of addressed that. The quick answer, did he ever find any real treasure? Is there evidence that he ever found any real treasure that we would consider treasure? The short answer.

Final Questions and Closing Reflections

Mark Elwood [02:30:27] That's a good way to put it.

Erin Elwood [02:30:27] John. I love your precise question.

Mark Elwood [02:30:29] Yeah, that's good. So we give a precise answer.

Erin Elwood [02:30:34] Sorry, John. And I got into like a debate yesterday about how, like, your question's too broad. You need to be precise.

Mark Elwood [02:30:41] Well, so, I mean, no, there's no real treasure that was found by Joseph. If you had to really pin me against the wall. And don't, you know, that's. That's it. But, you know, but the seer stone was found by him. Two seer stones.

Erin Elwood [02:30:56] And those were valuable to him. Yes, they were valuable to people who believed in that culture.

John Dehlin [02:31:01] I think the people that are asking

Erin Elwood [02:31:02] are like, did they find Captain Kidd's treasure? Gold.

John Dehlin [02:31:08] That was a follow up question. What's that?

Erin Elwood [02:31:10] That stuff doesn't exist.

John Dehlin [02:31:12] Yeah, that's. That was the other question is like, think of the thousands of treasure digs that happened during the one or two or 300 years before and after. Was ever any treasure like that ever found of chests of doubloons or, you know, ancient Mayan gold artifacts or Aztec or Mohican? Like, I don't even know who Seneca.

Mark Elwood [02:31:36] Well, they did find. I mean, well, kid, you know, kid did actually bury treasure, which is what, you know, spawned the whole thing.

Erin Elwood [02:31:42] It was like one treasure, right? Like he buried one treasure somewhere.

Mark Elwood [02:31:46] And then the story. No, Gardener's Island. I mean, okay, they retrieved it.

Erin Elwood [02:31:49] I thought they retrieved it.

Mark Elwood [02:31:50] Yeah. So it's. But then there's like, well, maybe there's more out there. And, you know, he's not the only one, but that's really where it began, I think. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:00] Okay. Hey, you've got Dan Vogel weighing in. He writes. Good job. I love the stuff Towed behind you. Shout out to Dan and his amazing book, Joseph Smith.

Mark Elwood [02:32:12] I'm excited for Dan's new book as well.

John Dehlin [02:32:14] Making of a profit. Sorry.

Mark Elwood [02:32:16] Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:32:17] Thank you, Dan, for starting us on this journey.

John Dehlin [02:32:19] Oh, my gosh. I'm having a headset malfunction. Just one second.

Erin Elwood [02:32:24] We.

John Dehlin [02:32:25] I respect Dan Vogel so much that I needed to plug his book, so.

Erin Elwood [02:32:30] No, you absolutely should.

Mark Elwood [02:32:31] And that is. I have it over there. That is sort of what started me on this journey. You know, like, it's sort of his fault. And I'm glad he wrote that book because.

Erin Elwood [02:32:40] And the dialogue article, you know, because again, you know, we. Mark pinpointed them on Google Maps and then we drove and we saw all of them and it's. It was really fun.

Mark Elwood [02:32:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:50] Shout out to Dan. We love you, Dan. We hope Signature Books approves your Nauvoo biography of Joseph.

Mark Elwood [02:32:55] I'm so excited for that book.

John Dehlin [02:32:58] I know, I know. We kind of got to get you guys out of Here, and I promised I would. So let me just.

Erin Elwood [02:33:02] Questions. We can keep going, but if there's not. Or it's.

John Dehlin [02:33:04] Oh, there's a ton of questions. Okay. Okay. Really quick. Let's see. Oh, Max George writes, I'm curious if you spent a lot of time looking into digging Alvin's body up. He's the guardian spirit to get the plates. So did they dig up Oven's body?

Mark Elwood [02:33:24] So that scene will be. Geez, it's gonna be in book three, actually, unfortunately. But so, yes, they. I mean, they dug up Alvin for some reason. Right. I mean, the. We know that happened, and we just don't know for sure what that means. Right. So there's lots of theories. I think Mark Hoffman really, you know, started the rumor mill for sure on that one. But I don't know if there was something before that other than that we know that he was dug up. And it seems strange that they would dig him up to try to determine whether his body was disturbed when he. Like, as Vogel has said recently, like, you could just look at the ground and see that it wasn't disturbed.

Mark Elwood [02:34:08] So there's got to be more. Again, there's got to be more of the story there. Right. And I. So the way I'm going to treat it in a way where I'm going to present the facts. Right. And have them actually exhume Alvin. But maybe we don't see exactly what happens at that point, but it. I'm using it as a motivational reason for why Joseph gives up treasure digging temporarily. It disturbs him.

Erin Elwood [02:34:33] It's so disturbing that they did that. Yeah.

Mark Elwood [02:34:35] He gives back his Seer Stone to Willard Chase.

Erin Elwood [02:34:37] And because he's like, well, we took it too far, guys.

John Dehlin [02:34:41] So Jeff writes, this is. I think this is probably a rhetorical question. Could Joseph Smith have planted some things in the digs to gain confidence?

Mark Elwood [02:34:52] Certainly he could have.

Erin Elwood [02:34:54] And so then what would be potential examples of what he might have? The feather is the one that.

Mark Elwood [02:34:58] Well, yeah, the feather. I mean, some people say that the stone, this type of stone shouldn't be where it was found. Perhaps he.

Erin Elwood [02:35:05] The brown one, the.

Mark Elwood [02:35:06] The brown chocolate stone, you know, or whatever. And definitely people accused him of that, you know, that he would hide things and go retrieve them.

Erin Elwood [02:35:17] That's less like treasure digging and more like finding lost things.

Mark Elwood [02:35:21] And Peter Ingersoll tells a story about the. His cow is missing. And then they. This isn't Joseph. But then Joseph Senior goes and says, hey, look, we can find the cows. I'll. I'll use this Rod, I'll show you how to do it. And they go, and they do find the cows. But Ingersoll's like, this is super deceptive. Look, they're even milked. Someone milked my cows. You. You knew they were here all along, you know, so, yeah, that's a possibility for sure.

John Dehlin [02:35:51] This is totally not connected to this book. Ryan asks, is there evidence that there's a connection between Dartmouth College, Mormonism, Ethan Smith? You're the Hebrews.

Erin Elwood [02:36:02] Go back to the map. Let's see. Oh, yeah, I saw him the other day. I don't know if I'm find him again.

John Dehlin [02:36:11] Oh, you want. You want to put the map up there?

Mark Elwood [02:36:14] Sure. So, yeah, I mean, they're all really close together.

Erin Elwood [02:36:17] Well, crap, I'm not gonna find it now. Here. You think you can find it?

John Dehlin [02:36:20] Well, we know that Alan. We know that Alvin attended Dartmouth College. Village. Right.

Erin Elwood [02:36:24] So there's Ethan.

Mark Elwood [02:36:27] Right here's where Oliver Cowdery lived. This is the wood scrape.

Erin Elwood [02:36:31] There's Joseph Senior, allegedly.

Mark Elwood [02:36:33] That's. Never mind. But that's yield. So lumens right here. I mean, so, like, yeah, everyone's coming out of Vermont and. And New Hampshire. The Smiths live all up here. There's so many treasure digs right around them. And I would love to connect some of these. The dates kind of check out, and I'm researching those as we speak. A few of these right now.

Erin Elwood [02:36:59] And so I'm sorry, that doesn't really answer your question, Ryan. View of Hebrews and Book of Mormon and mythology, etc, because. But Ethan Smith was, you know, right there. And the other.

Mark Elwood [02:37:09] It seems to imply just geographically that there's a connection at least.

Erin Elwood [02:37:13] Well, I guess view of the Hebrews is all about how Jews came from. Like. Okay, well, because I would say the Indian mounds, you know, or there's a lot of Indian mounds in this area. Native American mounds.

Mark Elwood [02:37:21] Sorry, but. Well, I think we threw out the name Zim for a minute. Why don't we just pull that slide up just for a second?

Erin Elwood [02:37:27] Okay. Yeah.

Mark Elwood [02:37:28] So, Ethan, you know, everyone was trying to explain, like, why we're seeing earthworks and things like that. And just for instance, this guy, this. This isn't related to Joseph. So I just had some sketches I had done of him. But Zim is a nearby seer located in Rochester. And he goes, you know, he puts his stone in his cap, and he does a slightly different. Where he, like, pulls it to his face, but then slowly moves it away,

Erin Elwood [02:37:56] and then he pulls it to his face to exclude the light. They Use the exact same phrase. Exclude the light.

Mark Elwood [02:38:00] Exclude the light.

Erin Elwood [02:38:01] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [02:38:01] And then. And oh, and he has two seer stones, one leading to another one, but so very similar to Joseph. And then he describes the former inhabitants of the land.

Erin Elwood [02:38:13] He.

Mark Elwood [02:38:13] And so just like Ethan has. Has done. And in this case, he's doing it as a visionary thing where there's these different civilizations of people. One, and some were giants, some were these, like, he called them Pygmies, and that they came before the Native Americans

Erin Elwood [02:38:34] and that they dug. They buried their treasures in the hills of that area. And that they. And then he found some gold wedges.

Mark Elwood [02:38:42] And the coolest thing is that he describes these pygmies fighting these giants. And so I have.

Erin Elwood [02:38:50] You guys are just fun.

John Dehlin [02:38:52] Yeah, super fun. And I have to call out the Monty Python reference there.

Mark Elwood [02:38:57] Okay, good.

John Dehlin [02:38:58] That is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Tim the Enchanter. And he says there are some who call me Tim.

Mark Elwood [02:39:05] And actually his name in the document is Tim. Tim. But they don't think there was anyone named Tim. And I think it was a Miss Thing, so it was them. But yeah. So good job, John. I'm glad you got that.

John Dehlin [02:39:16] Hey, I can be nerdy. I can get a little nerdy sometimes. So many people are saying this show was so entertaining. Oh, some people are saying best show ever. Literally.

Erin Elwood [02:39:28] Oh, no, I. You guys, we really got in the weeds there. It was a little bit too much like college lecture or something. I'm sorry.

Mark Elwood [02:39:35] But, yeah, it's okay, though. We did good for our first try.

Erin Elwood [02:39:40] Our first try.

John Dehlin [02:39:42] Here it is. Excellent. Angela writes excellent show. People are loving you guys. I would love you guys to come back as often as you want because your. Your knowledge, your. Your dynamic is cute together. It's. It's endearing. But you both have such a command of the knowledge. I just think you've done a really important work and I'm so honored that you. And thrilled that you'd come on to. To share it.

Erin Elwood [02:40:10] Thank you for inviting us. I've been texting with the babysitter, so if there's, like, any burning questions,

John Dehlin [02:40:18] really quick. Did you. Do you guys think that Joseph fashioned tin plates or fashion.

Mark Elwood [02:40:25] That's a good question about plates.

John Dehlin [02:40:27] Yeah.

Mark Elwood [02:40:28] So, yeah, that's a really good question. I do think there's something like, I. You know, a lot of times we like to say, oh, there was no place. No one ever saw anything. Well, there's enough people hefting something, right?

Mark Elwood [02:40:44] This is my personal opinion again, and I'm going to Draw it differently. But I will say that I believe it went from one. He had like mock up version one, mock up version two, and perhaps even a really cool looking gold plates. Mock up. But that's. If you're a skeptic, that's how I believe it. But I'm illustrating it where actually Dan Vogel thought of this awesome idea where there's some sources that kind of indicate that Joseph may have been almost throwing out a red herring to try to either get people off the trail a little bit, like, oh, it's not real. You know, I'm not describing it very well.

Mark Elwood [02:41:29] Just read, you have to read making a profit. There's a really good part in there where he's describing. All right, man, it's been a while.

Erin Elwood [02:41:37] Okay, well, so actually to that a related point, but not really related. It's like the, a cultural aspect of that time is the way that the rumor mill works.

Mark Elwood [02:41:46] Oh yeah, yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:41:47] And so I think Joseph. But others that, you know, in that time are really good at planting ideas like little tiny seeds and then letting the people do the work for them. Yeah, I think that's kind of.

Mark Elwood [02:41:59] So that's what I was trying to say was like, Google theory. Yeah. Like, he goes to Willard Chase and asks for a box. He's like, I really need a box. Like, you know, I gotta get a box. And so then it's like Willard's gonna be like, well, so did you get something? Like, and then he's gonna go compare notes with somebody else.

Erin Elwood [02:42:15] And did you hear Joseph was asking

Mark Elwood [02:42:17] for a. Joseph was out late last night, you know, like, and he's, he's got a head injury now.

Erin Elwood [02:42:22] Like he walked out with a bandage for like a couple weeks.

Mark Elwood [02:42:24] Well, yeah. Or like, you know, he went to the doctor and the doctor said he

Erin Elwood [02:42:28] had scrapes on his.

Mark Elwood [02:42:30] He's like, yeah, I was attacked by a devil. You know, like, so those types of stories, like, you know, just build. And there's others, not just Joseph, but there's other seers that follow that deliberately, purposely, like telling parts of the story, letting people fill in the rest. So I love it.

Erin Elwood [02:42:54] Yeah. Like going to a tavern and like there's one guy that was like, for that.

Mark Elwood [02:42:59] Yeah. Like, he.

Erin Elwood [02:42:59] This is not Joseph. It's.

Mark Elwood [02:43:01] Yeah, there's another story of a guy, he. He came into town, he was poor like yesterday, but also he's riding a really nice horse. You know, like, well, what, what, what happened? You know, and then people are asking him, but he won't tell anyone. And then, you know, he's like being. He's buying rounds of drinks for people and. And then before you know it, he's revealed to somebody that, oh, yeah, we found some gold and I think we can find more. And then, so then they're all buying into this and making, you know, drawing out contracts. And then the store, they. They planted little seeds and then they skip town and, you know, take.

Erin Elwood [02:43:34] So they didn't even do a dig?

Mark Elwood [02:43:35] No, they didn't.

Erin Elwood [02:43:36] Yeah, they didn't even do a dig in that one.

Mark Elwood [02:43:37] Wow. So that's a possibility too.

John Dehlin [02:43:43] All right, well, there's. I hope to have you guys back. There's so much more we could talk about. Let's just really get into, number one, how people buy this book. What happens when it sells out? No, the first thing I want to say is buy this book, like right now. By the end of this show, I want them to be sold out of books. So that's number one. Everyone go buy this book right now. The website is theglasslicker.com, is that right?

Erin Elwood [02:44:10] That's right.

John Dehlin [02:44:11] So go buy this book now. I will throw a special party for my listeners if this book gets sold out by the end of this episode. Once it gets sold out, how do people reserve a copy once? All the copies that exist and explain why this isn't just something that you just create the PDF and send it to Amazon and then they pump out books. This is a special super high quality print.

Erin Elwood [02:44:37] It is very high quality. It is a very high quality book. We did try doing an online service and the quality just was not good. It was. And the price difference was not that good. So we're using a local printer here in Atlanta and they do fantastic high quality work and the price honestly is not much different. And so, so that's why we're maintaining. Oh, so sorry. So it's self published. We created a publication printing company. Not printing company, a publication company to be able to self publish this. And so every time we order a print, we have to pay out of pocket up front. We don't have a Martin Harris to order 5,000 copies for us. So, you know, so we order what we think is reasonable, that we can sell and then we have, you know,

Mark Elwood [02:45:20] and we just do that.

Erin Elwood [02:45:20] We get the money back. And so we keep.

Mark Elwood [02:45:22] We have sold out several times from these small buys that we do.

Erin Elwood [02:45:26] Right. So in any event, we are running out at the moment. We were about to run out. We're like, okay, we're good for a while. And then John Mormon stories.

Mark Elwood [02:45:35] Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:45:36] So we Currently have a new print run in the works. It will be available to ship first week of March.

Mark Elwood [02:45:43] And anybody that orders in February, I'm going to include like a print as right.

Erin Elwood [02:45:48] So since, you know, it's possible that we'll sell out, we really sorry for the delay, but we will. We're including anyone that buys in February. We're include a print of the Byzantine Joseph, which is the image there in the middle. That of Joseph with his seer stone is like a magical saint guy. And so we'll include a print for you just for being patient and we appreciate it. But. But yes, the website works, but you

Mark Elwood [02:46:14] also can if there is copies on Benchmark Books.

Erin Elwood [02:46:17] Thank you.

Mark Elwood [02:46:18] If you live in Salt Lake City or near there, you should definitely go there. In fact, you can get it faster and probably a little bit cheaper because I. I give it to them in bulk and they can not. I don't have to pay for the shipping, so definitely go there first. I know they have some copies in stock right now.

Erin Elwood [02:46:34] They have a couple boxes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:46:36] I love Chris Bench. I'm a huge fan of. Of Chris Bench and the late Kurt Bench. And so, yes, please support.

Mark Elwood [02:46:43] It may not actually be cheaper in the end because you'll go in there and buy a lot of.

Erin Elwood [02:46:47] Yeah, that's true. That's what we do.

Mark Elwood [02:46:48] That's what happens to us. But it's still. It'll be worthwhile. You should do it.

John Dehlin [02:46:53] Okay. So when the book sells out, they can, they can reserve. You said they can't reserve.

Erin Elwood [02:46:59] You know, you pay, put in credit card information, everything. It just says it's on back order. And so because we're taking the orders and we're shipping, we'll get the call from our printer to go pick them up and we'll pick them up and mail them same day. So.

Mark Elwood [02:47:11] Yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [02:47:13] But then also, I think it's really important to understand that they can. That we need to have more of these, like, great bedtime reading for your children, for your nephews and nieces.

Erin Elwood [02:47:24] Okay. But there is a dead pirate. That's the only thing.

John Dehlin [02:47:27] Okay. And there's a bloody. There's the bloody face of whoever. Yeah.

Erin Elwood [02:47:32] Other than that it's child. I mean, I would say other than that it's child appropriate.

John Dehlin [02:47:35] But so, yeah, parents. Yeah. But nowadays with the stuff on tv,

Erin Elwood [02:47:39] I mean, it's not scarier than a Marvel movie. No,

John Dehlin [02:47:43] but there is. If you go to the Glass Liquor website, there's a way to become a patron and to support future editions. So talk about that. Really quickly.

How to Get the Book and Patron Thanks

Mark Elwood [02:47:54] Well, I'm glad you did that because I wanted to call out my patrons. They're really patient with me. I rarely post anything, but they. They started this for me. Like, without the patrons, I wouldn't have been able to do this either. And so I'm kind of revamping this right now. You're welcome to sign up as a patron, but I'm actually have it on hold until I put a lot more content in there.

Erin Elwood [02:48:17] Like, one of the things we talked about is putting the map on.

Mark Elwood [02:48:19] Yeah. This map that we're looking at today will probably go onto the patron website, you know, before it's any, you know, publicly available at all. So.

Erin Elwood [02:48:28] Because it needs a little cleanup before it's public. But we thought the patrons.

Mark Elwood [02:48:31] Maybe the patrons will. Yeah. Get it. And there is already a map that's specific to kid on there, and I have some other maps and charts and things that I'm planning on putting up. So, yes, patrons are welcome, but they really served as the kickoff. And, you know, some really awesome people helped me out there.

John Dehlin [02:48:55] And. And we need more me. We need more supporters. So please, not only buy the book, buy multiple copies for friends and family, ward members, bishops, stake presidency members, general authorities, every general authority should. Someone should buy a copy of this and give it to any. Every general authority. Oh, my gosh.

Erin Elwood [02:49:15] I told Mark I was gonna send 13 to church headquarters, and he. 15. Whatever. I forgot the number. It was like 12 plus one. But no, you're right, it's 12 plus three. 15 to church headquarters. And he was like, no, no. But we ran out. We actually sold out. And so I wasn't going to waste the money, but. But church headquarters has bought a few copies. They have. I think we've sold four to church headquarters.

Mark Elwood [02:49:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:41] Yeah. Someday the church is going to be in a secure place where they embrace pop culture like this and they're going to think it's. It makes Mormonism cool. Because that's what I think you guys do.

Mark Elwood [02:49:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:52] Mormonism cool.

Erin Elwood [02:49:53] Well, that's what we want to do. And like, Community of Christ. I mean, I think one of the reasons I push back a lot, John, with, like, you know, the direction you go on some of these things. It's like, not that I don't agree with you, because I actually do.

Mark Elwood [02:50:05] Right.

Erin Elwood [02:50:06] But is that I'm trying to serve reserve space for believers and not just lds, you know, corporation of Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake, but, you know, you know, Community of Christ or Strangite or Cutlerite or Bickertonite or whatever all these ites are. But in particular, Community of Christ has been really open to what Mark is trying to do because they have a very different relationship with Joseph Smith with his history and with his history, you know, they. They denied polygamy all those years. Right. So that was like their crisis of faith and they got through it and are in a better place. So.

John Dehlin [02:50:43] And we have several people calling for T shirts.

Erin Elwood [02:50:47] What do you guys want on the T shirt?

Mark Elwood [02:50:48] Yeah, I'll do it. Well, I used to make T shirts a lot, so.

John Dehlin [02:50:53] Yeah, like Joe, like, I think.

Mark Elwood [02:50:55] What is it?

John Dehlin [02:50:55] Medieval Joseph, Gothic Joseph. What is that again?

Erin Elwood [02:50:59] Joseph.

John Dehlin [02:51:00] That's a good place to start. The toad. Sally. Sally's eyes. Sally Chase's eyes.

Erin Elwood [02:51:09] You know, so our son's favorite is Joseph getting kicked. I know everybody said this, but our son Joseph gets kicked in the butt by a demon on the hill, Cumorah. And so that would be a fun silhouette of.

Mark Elwood [02:51:20] Yeah, that's from the. The wood. The. What is it called? The wood engraving or. That's in the Mormonism unveil.

Erin Elwood [02:51:28] Oh, in the illustrated Mormonism unveil, the woodcut engraving.

John Dehlin [02:51:31] Yeah, I like. I like the. The shot of Lumen Walters. Like, I. How about I am Lumen for the super nerds? You know, something like. Anyway. All right, well, listen, we're kind of jokey, but this is not a joke. This book is. The illustrations are just breathtaking. Mark Elwood, the scholarship Mark and Aaron is just, in my view, top notch. And the love and the care and the art, the artistry and the passion that goes into this book, it deserves much more than a three hour Mormon Stories podcast episode.

Erin Elwood [02:52:13] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [02:52:14] Please go buy. Please go support the Glass Looker. The Collected Tales of Joseph Smith by Mark Elwood with. With lots of assists from Aaron and any. Any final words you guys want to share before we take off? Give you guys the final word?

Erin Elwood [02:52:30] Well, I really sorry, we meant to say, if anyone's ever in the Palmyra or Susquehanna area, please let us know because we will send you on a treasure quest.

Mark Elwood [02:52:37] Yeah, we have this running list of things we're trying to research and honestly, like, it has been at times a group effort. You know, there's been a lot of people that have helped me and just really appreciate that.

Erin Elwood [02:52:50] Yeah. But no, thank you, John. Thanks for having us on. Appreciate your patience and working with us and, you know, let us know, you guys. Let us know what you want to talk about. Maybe. We'll be back.

John Dehlin [02:53:00] Somebody's recommending a calendar.

Erin Elwood [02:53:02] Oh, an icon calendar. That'd be good.

Mark Elwood [02:53:05] Yeah. Yeah, that'd be cool. I. I don't know. I was trying. I was. I've decided, is it too much to keep making icons like I wanted to for this book? But I'm not sure if I continue. I thought it would be cool to

Erin Elwood [02:53:16] do every patron Saints of Mormonism, Right. Like a triptych. So. Sorry, history nerds. Triptych is like a particular type of, you know, art display. And so three.

Mark Elwood [02:53:25] Yeah, three makes sense to me.

Erin Elwood [02:53:26] Like Trinity, the Godhead.

Mark Elwood [02:53:28] But I am kind of a completionist. And then I. I. When I'm playing video games and things. So I'm like, I want. Maybe I should do every single seer. Just every scene.

Erin Elwood [02:53:37] I want to see Odel as a. All right.

John Dehlin [02:53:40] Anyway, guys wants a toad once. Once a T shirt with the toad on it. And then this is the comment of the. Of the day. Joe Walker writes. It's been magical. Peeps, thanks for hosting.

Erin Elwood [02:53:55] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [02:53:57] You're great. Thanks so much. Come back soon for part two. And please stay in touch. We adore you guys. You. You've become our favorite Mormon couple.

Erin Elwood [02:54:07] Oh, thank you. Well, we appreciate the support in the South. How about the favorite Southern Mormon couple? I don't wanna.

Mark Elwood [02:54:12] No, there's cool other. There's some other cool Mormons.

Erin Elwood [02:54:14] Okay. The favorite Johns Creek, Georgia, Warm me couple. All right.

John Dehlin [02:54:19] Keep it really narrow.

Mark Elwood [02:54:21] Thank you.

Erin Elwood [02:54:21] All right, see you.

John Dehlin [02:54:22] All right, everybody, thanks so much. You guys take care. Stay in touch.

Erin Elwood [02:54:25] Thanks. Bye.

Closing Remarks and Support the Podcast

John Dehlin [02:54:27] And everyone, thank you so much for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. This has been so great. Really grateful to Mark and Aaron for this incredible contribution. Please do go buy this book right now. Buy it for friends and family, sell them out, and then order and reserve more copies. We just want this couple to be rewarded for their amazing work. But also, I think that people, you'll love this. Even if you think you know Mormon Church history, you'll read this book and learn things you never knew before. It's really fun, it's really fascinating, and it's just. It's noble. So thanks to everyone. Again, go to theglasslicker.com to.

John Dehlin [02:55:10] To order the books. And this has been great. And then I'll just end by saying thanks to everyone who supported us today. Thanks to all the people that made comments both on Facebook and on YouTube. We really love doing these live streams and getting the feedback and the input.

John Dehlin [02:55:28] I also want to thank everyone who donates to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. We have been you know, we lose donors every month. Whether people fall on financial hard times or they lose interest or they go to support other things, I just want to say we lose donors every month, sometimes 10 to 15 donors. And if we don't replace them, then our revenue starts going down and we have to offer less services or record less episodes or, you know, then we have less support from people like Gerardo and Kara and Jennifer and Jen and Brooklyn and all the staff that helps us make the Open Stories foundation possible.

John Dehlin [02:56:06] So if you value this content, if you want to see it continue, if you want to see more, please do Support us. At MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. Or you can donate here in in with the Stars feature on Facebook or in the super Chat feature here in YouTube, you can click on the little dollar sign and make a donation. I think YouTube allows us to take tax deductible donations or they don't take a cut. So please support us that way. We really do rely on your support to keep things alive.

John Dehlin [02:56:40] I also will say for those of you who are still tuned in, several of us are going to be at in St. George next week. There is a Thrive St. George conference that's happening and the dates are February 11th through 13th.

John Dehlin [02:56:59] I'm going to be there. Natasha Helfer is going to be there. David Bachavoy, Jesse Funk, Sam Young, Sean and Crystal Escobar. Susie Benson. So many cool people are going to be in St. George next weekend. If you just want to have a fun weekend, we're going to do karaoke. There's going to be a cash bar for those who drink. I don't drink.

John Dehlin [02:57:18] It's just going to be a blast. So please, if you've got some time next weekend and you want to have fun, it's at the convention center in St. George. It's only $25 for a three day event. There's going to be snacks and other things. So please join us. We want to sell that out again. It's Thrive Unite in St. George February 11th through 13th. Go to thrivebeyondreligion.com and you can register. And it would be fun to karaoke with you guys. So. So please do that. Please support that. Also, I'll just mention that there's a couple other Thrives Thrive events coming down the pike. There's Texas thrive April 2nd and there's also thrive Southern California April 2nd.

John Dehlin [02:58:05] And now there's going to be a thrive Orlando April 2nd. So again you can go to the events page@thrivebeyondreligion.com and you can register for any of those events. And we also want to encourage you guys to spread the word. Huge thanks to Mark Blanchard for his super chat. Mark, thank you for donating. Really appreciate that. And there's going to be more events and exciting things in the weeks, days and months ahead. I'll end by this just saying this as well. In one hour, we're gonna have Simon Southerton on Mormon Stories podcast. And I'm just going to go ahead and plug Simon's project because it's really, really super cool.

John Dehlin [02:58:51] We're going to be announcing in just a few minutes that Simon Southerton is signing up to do a monthly episode on Mormon Stories podcast. So many of you will know Simon Southerton. He is a geneticist who's a former Mormon bishop from Australia, and he was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for talking openly about his attempts to reconcile Mormon Church truth claims with Native American DNA. And this is as a geneticist. And so in one hour, we're going to be bringing Simon Southerton on Mormon Stories for a special new series.

John Dehlin [02:59:28] The episode coming up is going to be talking about the creation, but the series is called Mormon Doctrine versus Science. And what Simon's going to do is he's going to join us once a week and he is going to.

John Dehlin [02:59:45] Sorry, once a month. And Simon is going to be talking about challenges of Mormon truth claims as, as they're confronted with modern science, evolution, geology, chemistry, you know, all those sorts of things. And so please join us in an hour for our second live stream of the day with with Simon Southerton. But if you want to get a head start on supporting Simon and this incredible new initiative on Mormon Stories podcast, I just want to kind of call your attention. You can actually go to MormonStories.org podcast Simon and you can register to support this new initiative with Simon Southerton again called Mormon Doctrine versus Science.

John Dehlin [03:00:37] And so this is where you donate and everyone should know. Everyone who donates to the Simon Southerton Mormon Doctrine vs Science Project will receive a free PDF of Simon's new book called the Sacred How Native American DNA Exposes Mormonism's Lamanite Myth. It's a book that Simon released a couple years ago. It didn't get much play because.

John Dehlin [03:01:01] Because of COVID But if you become a monthly donor or subscriber to Simon's new project, you, you will get a free copy of that book. So please check that out if you can. We really want, just like we're supporting John Larsen with his initiatives on Mormon expression and Mormon Stories. And we're supporting Margi Delin for her new Thrive Story initiative, which we announced recently. We also want to support Simon and we're going to pay Simon just like we're paying John Larsen to come on and we're paying Margi to do the the Thrive Stories initiative. So anyway, so many cool things in the days, weeks and months ahead.

John Dehlin [03:01:41] Thanks for your support of Mormon Stories Podcast. Thanks to everyone on the Open Stories foundation staff again, Gerardo Cara Burrell, Brooklyn Alden Jennifer, Jen Camp has joined us. New so many people and of course, our amazing Open Stories foundation board, which is Clint Martin and Kerry Whitbeck. Couldn't do it without you guys. Couldn't do it without your donors. Thanks for supporting us. Thanks for your encouragement and be good to each other, be kind to each other. And most importantly, stay tuned for another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast in an hour. And then of course, check us out on YouTube, on TikTok, at Mormon Stories Podcast, on Instagram and on Facebook at the Mormon Stories Podcast page.

John Dehlin [03:02:26] You can always give us a positive review on the Apple Podcast app. We have so many haters that give us bad reviews who don't even listen to the podcast. So if you want to do something for us, go to the Apple Podcast app, give us a positive review, go to the Mormon Stories Podcast page, go to Spotify and give us a positive review on Spotify. We want as many five star ratings as we can to fight the haters that just try and bring our ratings down. So please spread the word as well because, because that really helps. And if you want to email us@mormonstoriesmail.com you can always give us feedback.

John Dehlin [03:03:04] If you have ideas for new episodes, we would love to hear that as well. If you have criticisms or complaints or compliments, we would love to get those@mormonstoriesmail.com and then of course commenting at YouTube, subscribing to us on YouTube, subscribing to our page on Facebook, commenting on Facebook, all of that helps the algorithms along with sharing this amazing content far and wide. And if you want to share this episode to help sell the book, that would be amazing as well. Anyway, so grateful for everything, you guys. We love you. Thanks for the support. Thanks for all you do. Thanks to all the Never Mormons that listen to Mormon stories podcast.

John Dehlin [03:03:44] Our YouTube growth has just been astounding and, and we really appreciate all that support. So keep following us. Let us know what we can do to give you more content that you love and need be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take.

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