The First Vision (also called the Grove Experience by members of the Community of Christ) refers to a theophany which Latter Day Saints believe Joseph Smith experienced in the early 1820s, in a wooded area in Manchester, New York, called the Sacred Grove. Smith described it as a vision in which he received instruction from God the Father and Jesus Christ.
According to the account Smith told in 1838, he went to the woods to pray about which church to join but fell into the grip of an evil power that nearly overcame him. At the last moment, he was rescued by two shining "Personages" (implied to be God the Father and Jesus) who hovered above him. One of the beings told Smith not to join any of the existing churches because they all taught incorrect doctrines.
Smith wrote several accounts of the vision between 1832 and 1842, two of which were published in his lifetime. Consistency of the accounts is a subject of debate, whether variations are indicators of significant shifts in Smith's theology or are simply changing emphasis of minor details. The First Vision is revered in Latter-day Saint theology as the first step in the Latter Day Saint restoration. Although it was relatively unknown to early adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith's 1838 account became widely circulated within a few years. The event grew in emphasis in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the late 19th century. For Latter-day Saints, the First Vision corroborates distinctive doctrines such as the bodily nature of God the Father and the uniqueness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only true path to exaltation.
Story of the vision
Smith wrote or dictated several versions of his vision story, and told the story to others who later published what they remember hearing. Taken together, these accounts set forth the following details:
Smith said that when he was about twelve (c. 1817–18), he became interested in religion and distressed about his sins. He studied the Bible and attended church, but the accounts differ as to whether he determined on his own that there was no existing religion built upon the true teachings of Jesus or whether the idea that all churches were false had not "entered his heart" until he experienced the vision. During this period of religious concern, he determined to turn to God in prayer. An early account says the purpose of this prayer was to ask God for mercy for his sins while later accounts emphasize his desire to know which church he should join. Smith said he went one spring morning to a secluded grove near his home to pray. He said he went to a stump in a clearing where he had left his axe the day before and began to offer his first audible prayer.
He said his prayer was interrupted by a "being from the unseen world." Smith said the being caused his tongue to swell in his mouth so that he could not speak. One account said he heard a noise behind him like someone walking towards him and then, when he tried to pray again, the noise grew louder, causing him to spring to his feet and look around, but he saw no one. In some of the accounts, he described being covered with a thick darkness and thinking that he would be destroyed. At his darkest moment, he knelt a third time to pray and, as he summoned all his power to pray, he felt ready to sink into oblivion. At that moment, he said his tongue was loosed and he saw a vision.
Smith said he saw a pillar of light brighter than the noonday sun that slowly descended on him, growing in brightness as it descended and lighting the entire area for some distance. As the light reached the tree tops, Smith feared the trees might catch fire. But when it reached the ground and enveloped him, it produced a "peculiar sensation." "[H]is mind was caught away from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."
While experiencing the vision, he said he saw one or more "personages", described differently in Smith's accounts. In his earliest written account, Smith said he "saw the Lord." In diary entries, he said he saw a "visitation of Angels" or a "vision of angels" that included "a personage," and then "another personage" who testified that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God," as well as "many angels". In later accounts, Smith consistently said that he had seen two personages who appeared one after the other. These personages "exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness." The first personage had "light complexion, blue eyes, a piece of white cloth drawn over his shoulders, his right arm bare." In later accounts, one of the personages called Smith by name "and said, (pointing to the other), 'This is my beloved Son, hear him.'" Although Smith did not explicitly identify the personages, most Latter Day Saints infer that they were God the Father and Jesus.
In two accounts, Smith said that the Lord told him his sins were forgiven, that he should obey the commandments, that the world was corrupt, and that the Second Coming was approaching. Later accounts say that when the personages appeared, Smith asked them "O Lord, what church shall I join?" or "Must I join the Methodist Church?" In answer, he was told that "all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom." All churches and their professors were "corrupt", and "all their creeds were an abomination in his sight." Smith was told not to join any of the churches, but that the fullness of the gospel would be made known to him at a later time. After the vision withdrew, Smith said he came to and found himself sprawled on his back.
Context
Background
Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, and in 1816, his family moved to a farm just outside the town of Palmyra, New York. In the first several decades of American society in the 1800s, there was a proliferation of religious options. During the Second Great Awakening, revivals occurred in many communities in the northeastern United States. The religious environment in the region where the Smith family lived was so intense it is referred to today as the burned-over district. In the Palmyra area itself, large multi-denominational revivals occurred in 1816–17 and 1824–25. Within eight miles of the Smith family farm, at least four Methodist, three Presbyterian, two Baptist, and several Quaker groups held regular meetings. Despite the large number of congregations however, only about 11% of Palmyra residents belonged to any organized religion in 1820, which was in line with the national average.
Besides organized religion, the Smith family was exposed to a number of other belief systems. A large ill-defined group of early Americans have been lumped into the term "seekers". This group held a heterogeneous set of beliefs; including that religion with creeds were unnecessary and the apostolic church no longer was on the earth. Cunning folk traditions or folk magic was also prevalent in Palmyra; intertwined and considered congruous with Christianity. Deism, the belief that God exists but does not intervene in earth, also had a growing hold in American culture with the publication of Thomas Paine's popular book The Age of Reason.
Richard Bushman has called the spiritual tradition of the Smith family "a religious melee." Like many other Americans living on the frontier at the beginning of the 19th century, Smith and his family believed in visions, dreams, and other communications with God. In 1811, Smith's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, described a series of visions and voices from God that resulted in his conversion to Christianity at the age of seventy-six.
Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, had a "believers baptism" early in her marriage, but did not formally join to any denomination early in her marriage. Joseph Smith Sr. was a combination of deist and seeker, who was skeptical of organized religion, but not irreligious. Before Smith was born, Lucy went to a grove near her home in Vermont and prayed about her husband's repudiation of evangelical religion. That night she said she had a dream which she interpreted as a prophecy that Joseph Sr. would later accept the "pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God." She also stated that Smith Sr. had a number of dreams or visions between 1811 and 1819, the first of which occurring when his mind was "much excited upon the subject of religion." The first of Joseph Sr.'s visions confirmed to him the correctness of his refusal to join any organized religious group. Smith's father additionally joined the local masonic lodge, with Smith's older brother Hyrum sometime shortly after arriving in Palmyra.
Smith's older brother Alvin did not join any organized religion. Lucy said that after Alvin died in late 1823, she sought comfort in religion, and formally joined the Presbyterian church in either 1824 or 1825 along with her children Hyrum, Samuel and Sophronia.
Dating the First Vision
Smith never gave a specific date of his reported vision, but said it occurred in the early 1820s, when he was in his early teens. In the 1832 account Smith says that from age twelve to fifteen he was pondering the situation of the world in his heart, placing the vision in 1821. Smith's scribe Frederick G. Williams inserted into the 1832 account that it had occurred "in the 16th year of [his] age" or 1821. In the 1838 account, Smith said the vision took place "early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty." In both his 1835 and 1842 account, Smith wrote that it occurred when "about fourteen years of age."
Historians have looked at contextual clues from the accounts to further narrow down the date. In the 1838 account Smith noted the following events:
- "Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion"
- "(The unusual excitement) commenced with the Methodist"
- "(The unusual excitement) soon became general among all the sects in that region of country, ... and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created no small stir and division among the people"
- "My Fathers family was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith and four of them joined that Church, Namely, My Mother Lucy, My Brothers Hyrum, Samuel Harrison, and my Sister Sophronia."
- "It was on the morning of a beautiful clear day early in the spring"
Each of these details have been the subject of significant research and debated widely among historians, critics, apologists and polemicists, sparking a variety of historical and theological interpretations. In the fall of 1967 the Reverend Wesley P. Walters published a pamphlet asserting that the "unusual excitement" Joseph Smith wrote of matched the Palmyra revival of 1824, and was anachronistic to the 1820 setting. Walters' pamphlet created a stir, and provoked a strong response from scholars at Brigham Young University (BYU). By spring of 1968 BYU Professor Truman G. Madsen organized around three dozen scholars to respond to Walters, and wrote to the First Presidency of the LDS Church that the "first vision has come under severe historical attack." Walters's thesis and the subsequent response has framed the historical debate.
Dating the move to Manchester
Local moves of the Smith family have been used in attempts to identify the date of the vision. Smith wrote that the First Vision occurred in "the second year after our removal to Manchester." The evidence for the date of this move has been interpreted by many believers as supporting 1820 and by non-believers as supporting 1824. Manchester land assessment records show an increase in assessed value of the Smith property in 1823. Because the tax assessment of the Smiths' Manchester land rose in 1823, critics argue that the Smiths completed their Manchester cabin in 1822, which suggests an approximate date of 1824 for the First Vision. Joseph Smith Sr. was first taxed for Manchester land in 1820. In 1821 and 1822, the land was valued at $700, but in 1823, the property was assessed at $1000, which may indicate "that the Smiths had completed construction of their cabin and cleared a significant portion of their land". In response, some Mormon apologists argue that in 1818, the Smiths mistakenly constructed a cabin 59 feet north of the actual property line (which would have been in Palmyra rather than Manchester) and the 1823 increase in the property assessment was related to the completion of a wood frame home on the Manchester side of the Palmyra–Manchester township line. The latter interpretation would lend support for dating the First Vision to 1820.