Did hallucinogens facilitate Joseph Smith's visions & those of early Mormon converts?  In his 1975 book, Hearts Made Glad, Lamar Petersen carefully documented the use of intoxicants by early members of the LDS Church, especially Joseph Smith. While mostly interested in the consumption of various fermented and distilled alcohols, Petersen also noted strange behaviors associated with the sacramental use of what seemed to outside observers to be medicated wine.

It appears that soon after the Church was organized in New York and later in Ohio, members partook of wine in sacrament meetings which occasioned visionary states and strange behaviors not typically associated with alcohol consumption or intoxication.

It is my thesis that beginning at a young age, Joseph Smith experimented with psychedelic plants and that many of Joseph Smith revelations and much of his behavior can be attributed to the use of psychedelics. Following Joseph Smith’s death, the pragmatic Brigham Young had no interest in psychedelic material, or was unaware of its use, and hence it did not become a part of Utah Mormonism.

However, James Strang and Fredrick M. Smith (Joseph Smith's grandson and president of the RLDS Church) perpetuated the use of psychedelics in their branches of Joseph Smith's original movement. The use of psychedelics by the Strangites and the RLDS Church could not be sustained.   Read more ...

Before his death in 1844, did Joseph Smith changes his views about reincarnation and is reincarnation found in his revelations?

Do the revelations of Joseph Smith, in distinction to his teachings, teach that God is so big that He fills the universe but so small that he can dwell in one's heart?  Read more ...

Was Emanuel Swedenborg the real prophet of the Mormon "restoration"?

Would Emma Smith have used the phrase "open" rather than "plural" to describe her husband's system of having "spiritual wives"?

It is believed that dream is a psychodrama created by the unconscious and projected onto the dreamscape.  A daytime vision may be the psychodrama projected not onto the dreamscape, but upon landscape of the natural world.  Being projected out of the psyche, the psychodrama can take on a life of its own, perhaps even the visionary not being aware of its source. 

Suppose that the revelations received by Joseph Smith and canonized by the LDS church are not external events witnessed by Joseph Smith, but are part of the psychodrama with the mind of Joseph Smith being projected outside where it appears to be from "the other", i.e. God.  In other words, Joseph Smith's are not revelations about literal history, geography, ancient peoples, etc but are the personifications of internal psychic struggles being directed by the "Self" or God leading toward the "individuation" or sanctification of Joseph Smith.

Under the Jungian paradigm, it is possible to view the revelations of Joseph Smith as dream content without loosing the idea of the divine. Considering the what the meaning of Joseph Smith's revelations as part of the process of individuation or progression may allow Joseph Smith to be accepted as revealing the divine in the parable of revealed scripture.

Does Mormonism fit the definition of a cult and does Joseph Smith qualify as a cult leader?  Most Mormons who are happy with thier membership would say no, we're not a cult.  But what about those who have left the Church or would like to leave.

Kathleen K. Melonakos writes,

It is my experience that if one wants to remain an active Mormon, one should never look too deeply into the origins of the church. Indeed, current church leaders actively discourage looking into "the mysteries," by which they mean records like the Journal of Discourses.

My own personal journey examining my relationship with Joseph Smith, his revelations and the Church he left behind.

Purchase copies of Mormon relics including Joseph Smith's peyote stone and Eliza R. Snow's alchemical medallion.