Early Mormonism and the Magic World View D. Michael Michael Quinn
Publisher: Signature Books, LLC

Acknowledges that Joseph Smith's serpent-cane "was either inspired by Freemasonry, folk-magic, or both," he discovered a symbol in it that I did not recognize in my book about Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. As a form of research for my fiction writing, I started reading non-fiction: Mike Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, his books on The Mormon Hierarchy, and Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History. The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987), D. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition. I find his books Mormon Hierarchy, and Early Mormonism and the Magic World View to be outstanding pieces of scholarship. Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View catalogues folk magic among the early saints that was strongly influenced by European hermeticism. I disagree with Michael Quinn's assessment that Joseph “reversed his prior rejection” of the false doctrine of reincarnation. In addition, she misses the significance of the Book of Mormon in causing early Mormons to settle in Missouri in an attempt to build what the text calls Zion or the New Jerusalem (360). 4/27/04That Old Black MagicWilliam J. (Early Mormonism and the Magic World View pg. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), and Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005).