ALL IN THE DRAGON FAMILY: MITT ROMNEY

Vernon G. Swanson is Director of the Springfield UT Art Museum, author of The Development of the Holy Ghost in Mormon Theology. Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline is stored in the Library of Congress. (more info)

PART 8: THE LATTER-DAY ISRAEL
CHAPTER 21: THE LITERAL DESCENDANTS OF THE CHOSEN SEED

“There is a 'chosen people' reserved in premortality to come to this earth in the last days through certain lineages. There is also a 'chosen family' in the latter days for Joseph Smith declared, 'but few of them [gentiles] will be gathered with the chosen family.' The 'chosen' were not all Jews, but also Ephraimites of the Shiloh Dynasty, who were called and ordained before the foundation of the earth to this work, and for the most part have admirably accomplished their missions.

“We have attempted to show how the patriarchal and matriarchal bloodline of the Lamb's chosen family presently flows through the veins of Joseph Smith, and because of it he was the Grail king and inheritor of the promises of the dispensation of the fullness of time. Because of this extended family the gospel could flourish where it was planted. In this regard, speaking of New York and by extension New England, the Lord declared: Behold, and lo, I have much people in this place, in the regions round about; and an effectual door shall be opened in the regions round about in this eastern land. -- D & C 100:3

“If the noble blood of Jesus Christ and His wives was present in America's founding fathers and specifically in Joseph Smith's lineage, might it also be present in other members of the Church leadership at all levels? If the blood of Israel was richly concentrated in England, Wales, and Scotland, was this not the ancestral base of most of our LDS leaders?...

“In scripture, the 'true vine' is usually used as a reference to Jesus Christ (John 15:1,5). However, it is also a metaphor for God's chosen people... It should be noted as well that later genealogical research has shown that many members of the early LDS Church leadership were distantly related to the Joseph Smith family. Brigham Young, speaking in 1845 of a shared genealogy, noted: 'When we come to the connections we discover that we all sprung back to the settlement of New England about 200 years ago...

“Other lines descending from Jesus Christ may be included in the Church's royal family...

“A few common ancestors in Britain seem to have been a crucial pivot in the family tree, which spread its branches to other founder and apostles in the LDS Church. Dealing with this issue, an interesting letter written in 1853, referencing a speech from Brigham Young, from Orson Pratt to Parley P. Pratt has come to light: 'You will recall that Joseph had a vision and saw that our families and his all sprang from the same man a few generations ago... The Lord has his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood to Enoch and from Enoch to Adam.'...

“...Archibald F. Bennett (1896-1965), Church genealogist...discovered that several generations back to Joseph did have a common ancestor with the Pratts. This ancestor was the English reformer, John Lathrop (1584-1653), the fifth great-grandfather of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“John Lathrop was a minister in the Church of England who broke from his church and formed a small dissident congregation. He was persecuted and imprisoned and eventually emigrated to America. Thousands of his descendants are LDS, as Richard W. Price wrote in his biography and genealogy of Lathrop: 'In the [LDS] Church I would say probably 25 percent of the original Church members in America were descended from him [Lathrop]... I don't think there's any recent, common ancestor that has more descendants in the Church.'

“According to genealogy, early Church leaders related to Lathrop include Oliver Cowdery, Orson and Parley P. Pratt, Wilford Woodruff, Frederick G. Williams, Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph F. and Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and others. More recently are included Nathan Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney and Bishop H. Burke Peterson, to name a very few. From this astonishing discovery, one can reason that Joseph selected many of the general authorities, not because of nepotism, but because he knew them through revelation to be descendants of Jesus Christ.

“Besides LDS leaders, the Lathrop line has produced other noted Americans, namely Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eli Whitney, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Dr. Benjamin Spock. More recently we have President George Bush, Utah Congressman Dan Marriott, former Secretary of Education T. H. Bell, former LDS Michigan governor George Romney and his son, Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts."

“We are reminded of Pelagius, the fifth-century British monk, who left the Catholic Church to pursue a truer vision of the gospel. He claimed descent from the ‘children of Joseph of Arimathea’ (a code name for the children of Jesus Christ). In like manner, Lathrop left the church of England to live as he felt the scriptures taught. The was thrown into prison and eventually banished to New England where he was able to teach and practice a more Puritanical life. Interestingly, there are many similarities between the early Pilgrims, Puritans, and the LDS Church. ‘Half of what the Puritans believed,’ writes Cureton, ‘is what Mormons believe also.’

“The converging genealogical lines point to Joseph Smith and the immediate families of the Church as having a special calling. Joseph’s lineage in Christ was very potent and was shared by many early Latter-day Saints. Among these are Judge James Adams, George Q. Cannon, and Heber C. Kimball.

“The Oliver B. Huntington journal records and account of how Joseph Smith sealed a Sister Repshire to Judge James Adams of Springfield, Illinois. The entry notes that, ‘The Prophet stated to her (Repshire) that Judge Adams was a literal descendant of Jesus Christ.’ Another example is brother Joseph saying to Edward Hunter, his scribe for section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants. ‘I know who you are, we are near kin, I know your genealogy.’

“These noted instances help to establish Joseph Smith’s understanding of the concept of a genealogical link between the royal lineage of the Savior to living Latter-day Saints of the early Church. The genealogy of the family of the first Church bishop, Edward Partridge (1793-1840) indicates that they are related to the Rex Deus ancestry of the Plantagenets, d’Anjoy, Stewarts of Scotland, and the Dukes of Normandy.

“The Isaac Morley lineage was supposedly through the Mores of Orkneys, Sinclairs of Scotland, Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd (the Welsh Knight Templar), John Dee (1527-1608), the occult alchemist, and others of the Grail bloodline. 16. Isaac Morley was the Mormon patriarch who established the first pioneer settlement in Sanpete Valley in 1849 and baptized Ute Indian chief ‘Joseph’ Walker in 1855.

“The apostle Heber C. Kimball, grandfather of president Spencer W. Kimball, also claimed ancestry from Jesus Christ. A number of quotations from the early brethren comfirm this concept. Orson F. Whitney, of the Grail seed himself, writes: ‘So was it with this servant of Christ [Heber C. Kimball], this brother of Jesus in the British Isles… His, also, was the Savior’s lineage; in his heart a kindred spirit; in his veins the self-same blood.’

“This was not some metaphorical blood, but literal and living blood, with the Savior’s DNA signature flowing through Kimball’s very veins. Brother Kimball, in the Tabernacle in March 1857, spoke along these lines:

‘Did you actually know Joseph Smith? No. Do you know Brother Brigham? No. Do you know Brother Heber? No, you do not. Do you know the Twelve? You do not; if you did, you would begin to know God, and learn that those men who are chosen to direct and counsel you are near kindred to God and Jesus Christ, for the keys, power, and authority of the kingdom of God are in that lineage.8’...

“There are those who find this presumptuous at best and sinister at worse. Most left-leaning and liberal Mormons find any discussion of a ‘special’ or ‘chosen’ bloodline repugnant and dangerous. 30 They believe it will lead to a ‘master-race’ syndrome of racial superiority. They see a waning of bloodline and chosen-race rhetoric as the chief reason for the proclamation of 1978 regarding the Blacks and in the demise of the LDS Church Patriarch’s office.

“It is at variance with Mormon tribalism, as given tin patriarchal blessings. The idea of blood, ancestral inheritance, genealogy, and bloodlines is noted in scripture in almost every chapter. It is particularly evident in the statements of Joseph Smith, and early Church leaders made Grail claims for themselves. However, without understanding and appreciating its message and meaning, it is ‘unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1:23)

‘For this anointing have I put upon his [Joseph Smith, Jr.] head, that his blessing shall also be put upon the head of his posterity after him. And as I said unto Abraham concerning the kindred of the earth, even to I say unto my servant Joseph: In thee and in thy seed shall the kindred of the earth be blessed. – D&C 124:57-58’

“A root or branch is mentioned in the Old Testament referring to a righteous king who will unite the throne with the bloodline of God (Jeremiah 23:4-5; Isaiah 11:1-5; Zech. 3:8-10; 6:12-15). This particular branch was probably Jesus Christ, although earlier we noted that the branch was the Church. However, the righteous Branch might also refer to the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. For as Zechariah wrote, ‘These are the two anointed ones’ (4:14). Joseph Smith was well aware that he, and Ephraimite, would also represent the House of David.”

(Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline, Vern G. Swanson, 2006, pp. 365-367)

Mitt Romney performed his Mormon missionary obligation in France in the late 1960s. During that period, Romney was promoted to "the highest position attainable by a missionary, that of assistant to the mission president in Paris... In the absence of the mission president, who had returned to the United States after his wife's death, Romney took on a greater leadership role.”

The Boston Globe
By Michael Kranish and Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | June 25, 2007

Mitt Romney's great grandfather, Miles Park Romney, was one of the early Mormon leaders who practiced and defended the practice of polygamy.

Mormon roots

Romney's family history is intertwined with that of the Mormon church. The Romneys came from the English village of Dalton-in-Furness, about 280 miles northwest of London, and immigrated to America in response to the same kind of missionary work that Mitt would perform.

Mormonism was in its infancy in 1837 when the Romney family, headed by a carpenter named Miles Archibald Romney, heard a missionary speak near their home about the story of the religion's founder and prophet, Joseph Smith.

Born in the little village of Sharon, Vt., Smith was praying in the woods of western New York when, according to his account, he saw ''a pillar of light exactly over my head.'' Two personages, God and Jesus, appeared before him, telling him that other churches ''were all wrong.'' Several years later, in the same woods, the angel Moroni appeared to him, directing him to a set of golden plates on which was recorded the history of an Israelite tribe that migrated to America and became the ancestors of the Native Americans.

The Romneys were so moved by the missionary's story that they were baptized as Mormons and, in 1841, they journeyed to Nauvoo, Ill., where Smith had established a Mormon community. On Aug. 18, 1843, the Romneys had a son named Miles Park Romney, the great-grandfather of Mitt Romney.

A year later, Smith was assassinated and the Mormons were driven out of Nauvoo, headed for a new promised land of Utah. The Mormons believed that the great mountains of the West would protect them from persecution and from hostility toward polygamy. Mormon men had begun taking ''plural wives'' after Smith said God told him to revive the Old Testament practice of polygamy.

When Miles Park Romney turned 18, he followed instructions from Mormon leader Brigham Young that he find a wife. On May 10, 1862, Miles married a woman who would eventually bear him 10 children, Hannah Hood Hill. One month later, with Hannah pregnant, Miles left to perform church missionary duties in England for nearly 3 1/2 years.

Two months after the marriage, on July 8, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed an antibigamy act, which prohibited polygamy in Utah and the other territories. Miles believed strongly in the church's practices and was committed to his mission to bring converts to America. He laid out his beliefs in England in an article titled ''Persecution.''

''Many, now, wonder why it is that we are so despised,'' Miles wrote. But Miles stood by his faith, writing that ''from the earliest ages of the history of man, Truth and those who strictly adhere to its principles have been unpopular.''

Miles returned to Utah in October 1865, meeting his 2 1/2-year-old daughter for the first time. The family was poor, possessing a small cook stove, a bed, three chairs and a small table. Miles, a carpenter, bought land and built a two-room wooden house. Hannah became pregnant again, and a second daughter was born.

''We were happy,'' Hannah recalled, in an autobiography written for her family when she was 80 years old. ''We had two sweet little girls to bless our home and make it more happy and they bound us together in love and union.''

Addition to a marriage

It was then, in 1867, that Miles P. Romney had a fateful meeting with Young.

''Brother Miles P., I want you to take another wife,'' Young requested, according to Hannah's autobiography.

Miles faced the choice of obeying US law, under which polygamy was illegal, or the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He chose the church. Hannah was distraught.

''I felt that was more than I could endure, to have him divide his time and affections,'' Hannah wrote later. ''I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife, but I put my trust in my Heavenly Father and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to bear this great trial.''

Then Hannah performed her duty: she prepared a room for her husband's new wife, Caroline Lambourne. Hannah wrote, ''I was able to live in the principle of polygamy and give my husband many wives.'' But her despair deepened when her younger daughter died at 10 months.

Soon, Young gave Miles and his two wives a new mission: sell your home, and move to the southern Utah town of St. George. The new settlement about 300 miles south of Salt Lake was in a vast desert, surrounded by red-toned ridges in a region where summer temperatures often topped 100 degrees.

Young prophesied that, ''There will yet be built between these volcanic ridges, a city, with spires and towers and steeples, with homes containing many inhabitants.'' The Romneys sold their Salt Lake City home and moved to St. George, where they lived ''in a little shanty, a small board room, and a wagon box,'' Hannah wrote.

From the shanty, the Romneys wrote themselves into church history as builders. Miles played a major role in the construction of St. George Temple. Then, Brigham Young hired Miles to build a two-story addition to his winter home in St. George. Miles took on the task with zeal, constructing one of the most lavish residences in Utah, a sandstone brick dwelling with an elaborate porch painted red and green. The restored home is visited today by Mormons from around the world, who are told of Miles's role in building the house. Pictures of Young and Romney hang in an adjoining building.

But while Miles was prospering as a builder, he had increasing trouble handling two wives. Hannah wrote that Caroline ''was very jealous of me. ..... She wanted all my husband's attention. When she couldn't get it there was always a fuss in the house. [Miles], being a just man, didn't give way to her tantrums.''

Miles and Caroline had two children, whom Hannah agreed to care for. But Caroline was not satisfied. She asked Young for permission to return to her parents in Salt Lake City. The separation was ''the severest trial ever experienced'' by Miles, according to ''Life Story of Miles Park Romney,'' written by his son, Thomas. Miles and Hannah ''made a special trip of three hundred miles by wagon to try to induce Carrie to return to her home in Saint George. But all their pleadings were in vain,'' and a divorce was granted, according to the biography.

Miles, meanwhile, was climbing in prominence in the church. He was given a new responsibility: defeat a congressional effort to enforce antipolygamy prohibitions. Miles and four other Mormon leaders signed a letter stating that ''the Anti-polygamy bill ..... is unconstitutional and is an act of special legislation and ostracism, never before heard of in a republican government and its parallel hardly to be found in the most absolute despotisms, disfranchising and discriminating, as it does, 200,000 free and loyal citizens, because of a particular tenet in their religious faith.''

Romney and the others said the legislation violated the Declaration of Independence's guarantee that all men had the rights of ''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' and the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of religion.

The lobbying paid off and the bill died in the Senate, but other antipolygamy laws remained on the books.

For a brief time, with Caroline having left, Miles and Hannah were once again in a single-wife marriage. It was then, in 1871, that Hannah gave birth to Gaskell, the grandfather of Mitt Romney.

Two years after Gaskell's birth, however, Miles met the fair-skinned Catharine Cottam, who had flowing hair, a serene smile, and was described by her brother as the ''prettiest girl in St. George.'' Miles married Catharine in Salt Lake City on Sept. 15, 1873.

Hannah, seven months pregnant, did not attend the wedding. Instead, she prepared a room for Catharine, whom she called ''a girl of good principles and a good Latter-day Saint.''

''I cannot explain how I suffered in my feelings while I was doing all this hard work, but I felt that I would do my duty if my heart did ache,'' Hannah wrote.

Two months after Miles and Catharine were married, the child of Miles and Hannah died during delivery. Hannah blamed herself.

''I felt I had caused it by doing so much hard work,'' Hannah wrote.

Nearly four years later, Romney married again, taking as his wife Annie M. Woodbury, a schoolteacher.

Romney's life in St. George with Hannah, Catharine and Annie briefly settled into a comfortable, devout routine. But church leaders in Salt Lake City intervened, devising a plan to plant Mormon communities in an arc throughout the West. Miles was told by church leaders to uproot his family and help settle the town of St. Johns, Ariz.

The journey of almost 500 miles was harrowing, requiring the wagon trains to skirt the northern rim of the Grand Canyon.

''Here you can see the river hundreds of feet below you winding its way between perpendicular banks of solid rock without a tree to be seen and devoid of vegetation,'' Catharine wrote her parents, as quoted in a volume compiled by her great-granddaughter, titled, ''Letters of Catharine Cottam Romney, Plural Wife.''

Finally, the Romneys arrived in St. Johns. It was a sparsely settled town, a Wild West amalgamation of gun-toting farmers and laborers, including Native Americans and Mexicans, who were especially resentful of new settlers such as the Mormons. The local newspaper, the Apache Chief, urged on May 30, 1884, that ''the shotgun and rope'' be used to get rid of Mormon settlers.

''Hang a few of their polygamist leaders such as ..... Romney ..... and a stop will be put to it,'' the newspaper said.

Catharine began to fear her surroundings, writing, ''I believe there are some as wicked people here as can be found anywhere on the footstool of God.''

The tensions accelerated as local authorities sought to try Romney on charges of polygamy. To avoid prosecution, Romney sent Catharine and Annie into hiding.

But authorities brought new charges, alleging that Romney lied about having title to his land. One night, a marshal arrived at the Romney home after midnight, demanding that Miles surrender.

''The marshal had a gun in one hand and handcuffs in the other,'' Hannah wrote.

A colony in Mexico

Miles fled to Utah, where he was told by church leaders ''to go to Old Mexico and build a city of refuge for the people that would have to go there on account of persecutions of polygamy,'' Hannah wrote. Miles agreed, and decided it was safest to go with only one of his wives, Annie. He left behind Hannah and Catharine and their children, hoping they would reunite in the coming months.

After weeks of travel, Romney reached a vantage point in the Mexican mountains.

Gazing upon a valley that extended for miles on the banks of the Piedras Verdes River, Miles Romney saw mesquite and cactus carpeting the flatlands, with stands of scrub oak shading the riverbanks. The valley floor was 5,000 feet high, providing a climate cool enough to support peach and apple trees. Beyond brown hills, the towering, pine-covered peaks of the Sierra Madre curtained the valley, catching the winter snows that would provide ample water for irrigation. This would be the colony of Juarez - Colonia Juarez.

At first, Miles was desperately poor and responsible for an enormous family. He lived out of a wagon, and then a crude hut.

On Dec. 27, 1885, shortly after helping establish the colony, Miles despaired of his plight. He feared federal marshals might come to Mexico to arrest him. He was uncertain about the fate of Hannah and Catharine.

''I sometimes think that I am only an injury now to both my family and my friends,'' Romney wrote to Catharine's brother Thomas. ''I have borrowed my friends' money, and my family receive no support from me, and the prospect ahead seems as black as midnight darkness.''

Soon, Hannah arrived. Then, more than a year after Romney arrived in Mexico, Catharine joined them. A festive reunion followed, with Miles, his three wives, and their children. ''21 of us all together had a splendid dinner,'' Catharine wrote her parents.

The town, meanwhile, began to take shape, due in significant part to Gaskell Romney. At 15, he helped build the canal that irrigated the fields, and helped build a family farm known as Cliff Ranch, in the mountains overlooking Colonia Juarez.

Then the family's world came crashing down once again. Back in Utah, some of the same Mormon leaders who had urged Romney to create a refuge for polygamy now turned against the practice.

In September of 1890, Church president Wilford Woodruff issued what was called the Manifesto: ''I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.''

The careful wording of the Manifesto might have given some solace to the Romneys. They may have believed that Woodruff was referring to the law in the United States, not Mexico. They continued their practice of plural marriage, but even more isolated than before. Indian attacks and crop failures were common.

Miles moved to a nearby town called Colonia Dublan and, in 1897, seven years after the Manifesto, married for a fifth time, to a wealthy widow named Emily Henrietta Eyring Snow, the only wife with whom he did not have children.

Gaskell, meanwhile, married Anna Amelia Pratt, who would become Mitt Romney's grandmother. Anna descended from one of the most important families in the Mormon faith. Her grandfather, Parley Pratt, had 12 wives and was chosen by Joseph Smith as one of the 12 Apostles.

Gaskell and Anna broke with their family traditions and did not engage in plural marriage.

After 12 years of marriage, the couple had a boy whom they named George W. Romney, the fourth of their seven children... / George Romney was Mitt Romney's father.

Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was among the first leaders of the LDS Church in the early 19th century. His first cousin once removed Marion George Romney, was an Apostle of LDS Church. Mitt Romney's father, George W. Romney, was a patriarch of LDS Church.

Parley Parker Pratt (12 April 1807 – 13 May 1857) was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1835 until his murder in 1857. He served in the Quorum with his younger brother, Orson Pratt. He was a missionary, poet, religious writer and longtime editor of the religious publication The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star. Scenic Parley's Canyon in Salt Lake City, earlier known as Big Canyon, was renamed in his honor.

Pratt practiced plural marriage and had twelve wives. One great great grandson is Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and suspended candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.[1]...

[Pratt] was also ordained to the office of an elder in the church. Continuing on to his family's home, he introduced his younger brother, Orson Pratt, to Mormonism and baptized him on 19 September 1830.

Pratt then returned to Fayette, New York in October 1830, where he met Joseph Smith and was asked to join a missionary group assigned to preach to the Native American (Lamanite) tribes on the Missouri frontier. During the trip west, he and his companions stopped to visit Sidney Rigdon, and were instrumental in converting Rigdon and approximately 130 members of his congregation within two to three weeks.

Pratt was later assigned additional missions to Canada, the Eastern United States, the Southern United States, England, the Pacific Islands, and to South America. He moved to Valparaiso, Chile to begin the missionary work there. They left after not much success and the death of his child Omner in 1852. In addition to his brother, Orson Pratt and Sidney Rigdon, he was instrumental in introducing the Mormon faith to a number of future LDS leaders, including Frederick G. Williams, John Taylor and his wife Leonora, Isaac Morley and Joseph Fielding and his sisters, Mary and Mercy Fielding.

In addition to serving as an active missionary, Pratt entered the leadership of the early Latter Day Saint movement acting as an original member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. While on a mission to the British Isles in 1839, Pratt was editor of a newly created periodical, The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star. While presiding over the church's branches and interests in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, Pratt published a periodical entitled The Prophet from his headquarters in New York City. He was also a noted religious writer and poet. He produced an autobiography, as well as some poems which have become staple LDS hymns, some of which are included in the current LDS Church hymnal.

After the death of Joseph Smith, Pratt and his family were among the Latter Day Saints who emigrated to Utah Territory and continued on as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) under the direction of Brigham Young. Pratt was involved in establishing the refugee settlements and fields at both Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah, Iowa and personally led a pioneer company along the Mormon Trail to the Salt Lake Valley. Sometime in the mid 1850s, working with George D. Watt, he helped develop the Deseret alphabet. In 1854, Pratt went to California to preside over the Pacific Mission of the LDS Church headquartered in San Fransisco.

The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, surrounded himself with 12 apostles of which his closest colleagues were Jewish Cabalists, Orson Hyde and Alexander Neibaur. Lance Owens wrote of Neibaur’s intimate knowledge of the Cabala and his strong influence on Joseph Smith:

“That Neibaur brought a knowledge of Kabbalah to Nauvoo has been mentioned in several studies of the period. For instance, Newel and Avery note in their biography of Emma Smith, ‘Through Alexander Neibaur, Joseph Smith had access to ancient Jewish rites called cabalism... That he not only knew something of Kabbalah, but apparently possessed a collection of original Jewish Kabbalistic works in Nauvoo, is however documented in material almost totally overlooked by Mormon historians.

“Can anyone familiar with the history and personality of Joseph Smith--the prophet who restored the secret knowledge and rituals conveyed to Adam, translated the works of Abraham, Enoch, and Moses, and retranslated Genesis--question that he would have been interested in the original version of this Jewish occult tradition? And here, in Neibaur, was a man who could share a version of that knowledge with him. Whatever the reasons for the similarities, it should be remembered that the Hermetic-Kabbalistic world view parallels Joseph’s vision of God in many particulars. Not only might Joseph have been interested in this material, but he would have noted how similar this sacred, secret tradition was with his own restoration of ancient truth. And perhaps Neibaur, on a religious quest--from Judaism and Kabbalah, Europe and England, to Christianity and Mormonism and a new home in Nauvoo--saw or even amplified that intrinsic sympathy in his explications of the tradition for Joseph.

“Whatever the reasons for the similarities, it should be remembered that the Hermetic-Kabbalistic world view parallels Joseph’s vision of God in many particulars. Not only might Joseph have been interested in this material, but he would have noted how similar this sacred, secret tradition was with his own restoration of ancient truth. And perhaps Neibaur, on a religious quest--from Judaism and Kabbalah, Europe and England, to Christianity and Mormonism and a new home in Nauvoo--saw or even amplified that intrinsic sympathy in his explications of the tradition for Joseph.

“Certainly the first text Joseph Smith would have confronted was the Zohar, the great heart of the Kabbalah. This is one of the works Neibaur cited repeatedly in his article and, as the central text of Kabbalah, is the key book any individual with Kabbalistic interests would have preserved in his library. Familiarity with the Zohar was a given for a Kabbalist, particularly one with knowledge of works as divergent as those cited by Neibaur, all of which expounded in some degree upon themes in the Zohar. If Neibaur had read to Joseph from any single text, or explained Kabbalistic concepts contained in a principal book, the Zohar would have been the book with which to start. This might explain why in 1844 Smith, in what may be his single greatest discourse and in the most important public statement of his theosophical vision, apparently quotes almost word for word from the first section of the Zohar.” (“Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection”)

Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism's Sacred Bloodline

By Vernon G. Swanson