Notes on “Triangulating God”

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UPDATE: VIDEO NOW AT BOTTOM OF POST

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This evening I am giving a presentation on triangulating God, but if you're here now, I assume it's because that's where you're coming from.

So, leaving niceties aside, let's get to those links you're here for.

Clicking on that black square will take you to the Oakland Stake's YouTube page. When my presentation is actually up and available, I'll add it to the bottom of this post. The audio may also appear as a special episode of Face in Hat. If so, that last sentence is now a link. (Or just check your favorite podcast source.)

These links are roughly in the order in which I presented them, but not exactly. For instance, links to Etsy or the Church's international art competition or books are clumped together. I've also included some works I wanted to include but just could not. I crammed a hundred and fifty things into a subhour presentation, but even speedtalking Theric has his limits.

In other words, the order here is by category and the categories are ordered, sort of, by how they appeared in the presentation.

I should also note that some things are not included here. There are several reasons why this may be. The original source has proven difficult to track down; it's something obvious (eg, the Articles of Faith, an album cover); I failed to keep track of where it came from; basic human failure. I preemptively apologize for all such errors now.

Joseph Smith's versions of the First Vision

The Joseph Smith Papers have them all

Although I didn't use this page, the BYU library has a nice summation of this history

"The Earliest Documented Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision" by Dean C. Jessee (the source I most relied on)

Orson Pratt's use of "first vision" in General Conference

do your own General Conference searches

text of his sermon

Methodist conversion stories

"Joseph Smith’s First Vision and Methodist Conversion Narratives" by Christopher Jones

"'Effusions of an Enthusiastic Brain': Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the Limits of Experiential Religion" by Jeremy Talmage

More on the Vision and Orson Pratt

The Vision

Orson Pratt

Random things from the first half

Images of Palmyra churches

Images of the Bay at night

Images yanked off Wikipedia: 1, 2, 3, 4

Image of Eliza R. Snow

Calvin's tweet

The first important piece of First Vision scholarship (now somewhat outdated)

"The Significance of Joseph Smith's 'First Vision' in Mormon Thought" by James B. Allen (update: just found a version of it in the Improvement Era!)

I took a class from Milt Backman once. Although I didn't use these, I still recommended:

His full book, the first booklength treatment of the different versions

His version for the laity

Steven C. Harper's thinking informed me quite a bit

"10 questions with Steven C. Harper"

His book: Amazon, Bookshop

(note that some of the links in this post that lead to commercial outlets may offer me a kickback)

BYU Studies just did a full issue on the First Vision; if they had released it a month earlier, they could have saved me a lot of time---Sweat's article gets into more detail to many of my ideas

Full issue

"Visualizing the Vision: The History and Future of First Vision Art" by Anthony Sweat

"Raising the Stakes: How Joseph Smith’s First Vision Became All or Nothing" by Steven C. Harper

"The First Vision as a Prehistory of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" by Kathleen Flake

Poems

Gideon Burton

Emma Lou Thayne

Bruce W. Jorgensen

Darlene Young: Amazon, Bookshop

James Goldberg

Eliza R. Snow: (a friend directed me to this poem via a recent collection, but I screenshot it here---which collection I just discovered is available in the Deseret Alphabet!)

Evan Stephens

Effing ineffable

"Rendering the Ineffable Effable: Treating Joseph Smith's First Vision in Imaginative Literature" by Richard H. Cracroft

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The Fruits of the First Vision

Noah Van Sciver

1, 2

Nick Anderson

first Proclamation video

second Proclamation video

Brandon Flowers (slash The Killers)

"My Own Soul's Warning" (lyrics video)

Imploding the Mirage album (forthcoming) on Amazon, iTunes

"Only The Young" (official video)

Flamingo album on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Genius

While we're at it, here's that video with Charlize Theron.

Arcade Fire

"Antichrist Television Blues" videos

Neon Bible album on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Genius

"Tregan's Mettle" by Jack Harrell

under its original title

A Sense of Order: Amazon, Bookshop, my review

And two more short stories I fully intended to cram in but did not

Thom Duncan's "The Glowing"

Gabriel González Núñez's "Documentary Appendix 1"

Image sources

First known image

First image published by the Church

A lower-res but wider shot of Joseph F. Smith in the Grove than the one I used

"15 Beautiful Images of the First Vision"

from the Church

from Church History

The International Art Competition: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Gary Ernest Smith

Casey Jex Smith

Desert Prophet

LAZERos

Jorge Cocco Santángelo

Meg Sherlock

Galen Dara

Jenina Carriaga

Kid-generated images

Alliance of Covenant Artists

Stained glass: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Etsy (assmuming I didn't miss any and knowing there are some here I did not use): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Commercial cites focused on sales of reproductions: 1, 2, 3

Commercial cite focused on originals (all the ones I used are sold): 1

Allll the Ben Crowder First Visions of which I only shared three

Information and images on Lane Twitchell

Parallel Lines of Second Sight (Beginnings, Visions, Translations, and the State of Union)

"Landscape and the American West" by Cherie K. Woodworth

Films

The Best Two Years

The Fighting Preacher

1992 Oakland temple pageant

the ARCH-HIVE

First Visions: preview, purchase

Other stuff from Arch-HIVE that didn't make the final cut:
"The Vision" by Gnome Chompsky (short story), "An Unusual Boy" by Jared Cook (short story), "Would God That All the Lord’s People Were Prophets" by The One Who Hies (essay)

Books mentioned

A Sense of Order (story collection): Amazon, Bookshop, my review

Seventh Son (novel): Amazon, Bookshop

Witchy Eye (novel): Amazon, Bookshop, my review

The Backslider (novel): Amazon, Bookshop, my review

The First Vision (piture book): Amazon

A Day Like No Other (photography collection): Amazon

A Pillar of Light (comic book): Amazon, my review

First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (scholarship): Amazon, Bookshop

James Faulconer's

Heavenly Mother books: Dove Song (a/b), Mother's Milk (a), The Tree at the Center (a/b)

John Moeller's First Vision (soundscape)

https://www.moellerstudios.org/portfolio/first-vision/
Incidentally, I almost went with this music for the closing act instead

More on Wilum H. Pugmire

Wikipedia

My interview with him

Truman Madsen

Photographs

"Fire from Heaven"

I also had a folder of straight up kitsch, none of which made the final presentation

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

And that's it! Or, anyway, it's all you're getting!

Thanks for coming!

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