Polygamy & Abortion in Joseph Smith's Nauvoo – John C. Bennett Pt 2

hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast LDS discussions Edition I am one of your hosts for today John delin it is January 10th 2024 happy New Year and we are excited to bring uh back in 2024 the LDS discussion series for those of you who don't know what that is uh this amazing uh co-panelist Mike uh put up a website called LDS discussions uh few years back sharing his analysis of Mor matur truth claims and it's a series that's got I don't know 40 or 50 episodes now and it's well-loved and uh today we're going to be covering part two of a three-part series on Joseph Smith's puppet or right-hand man in navoo John C Bennett last uh last LDS discussions episode we talked about the rise and fall of John C Bennett and him uh acting as as Joseph Smith's puppet in Nauvoo as mayor and and as uh of you know head of the Legion and head of the university and all the different uh jobs that he had um today we're going to be talking about um his involvement in spiritual wiery or polygamy and the scandalous uh question or allegation that he was an abortionist in navoo which speaks to um you know this question of birth control and polygamy and can even touch for some on the topic of uh you know why didn't Joseph Smith have Offspring uh if he had sex with his polygamous wives and of course one of the uh possibilities is is that abortions were being performed so we're going to look at uh the the evidence and the data for that and you can decide whether you think that's plausible so that's what we're in store for today we're so grateful to have you with us and we're also grateful to have with us an amazing uh group of panelists we have uh Mike the original um Hefe of LDS discussions hey Mike hey everybody how's it going welcome back thanks for joining us yeah it's nice to be back and like I said last time it's nice because Julia's put all this good work in and so it's fun to be able to kind of be on like the the the side seat here and and kind of watch it CU it's it's actually been helpful to me because I have not spent a lot of time on this so this is this is fun yeah well it's great to have you we also have Nemo back hey Nemo hello hello Nemo is the Nemo the Mormon guy uh check out his YouTube channel officially the same age as Mike from alious discussions now just wanted to get that out there we we're both 27 years old that's the that's yeah Mike's 27 that's that's Canon that's Canon now only Mike is 27 years old yeah only I feel about about triple that right now all right well glad to have you both back and we're super excited to have as a new addition a new addition to our panel and as a researcher who does a lot of great work for Mormon stories Julia hey Julia hi this is your series um so uh we're we're glad to have you all right and Julia you're the you're the one who was tasked with doing the research for this episode so we're just really great to have you and we've got lots of good feedback about you as a new panelist on the show oh good that's really good so we're glad to have you all right well last last uh last time we left off on the rise and fall of John C benett but there's so much on this guy that we needed to split this up into three yeah yeah so some of the things that we're going to say at the beginning are sort of like just reminders from the last one because they carry on into this and they're important so so some of these might be reviewed but but that's okay that's good yeah well let's let's jump into it okay perfect so so right here is just the so I just wanted to remind everybody that the books that I'm getting everything from this information is from his biographer Andrew F Smith and he wrote the book The stly scoundrel on the The Life and Times of Dr John C Bennett and so that's where a lot of this is coming from and then so we left off and the other and of course the other book is his his expose but so he left off whenever he was excommunicated I think the main push for him being excommunicated is the sexual allegations against him and so on the 17th of May of 1842 having been acquitted um he so people are accusing him of having intercourse with several females and that he was seducing them and so that's one of the reasons why he was why he was uh excommunicated and eventually kicked out of the church so I just wanted to remind people of that okay and then so I also wanted to remind everyone that we talked about this last time but on the 17th of May um he signs a statement that was already written and that he never did that Joseph Smith did never teach him in private that an ilc that an illegal isit intercourse with females was under any circumstances justifiable so again Joseph Hans Hansen this paper is saying you know that John C Bennett didn't come up with this that it was or that that Joseph didn't come up with this it was all John's idea and he just signs it um so again we'll see this practice in the Mormon church where they give you a statement that's already been written and you just sign it so and and Julia some some one piece of feedback is they want us to slow down a tiny bit sometimes when we read stuff so I'm going to read that again he never did teach to me in private that an illegal illicit intercourse with females was under any circumstances justifiable so he's testifying that Joseph never taught him that uh multiple sexual partners was okay is that what that's saying exactly yeah so he he's just saying it was all this spiritual iere is all my idea it wasn't Joseph's and and I'm signing to that okay so yeah okay all right okay so now we're gonna talk about so so there's two parts that I want to talk about in this episode and we're covering polygamy and then and then the abortions of course this is the first section that we're going to talk about is just polygamy okay um so in 1842 he writes very quickly it only takes him a month or so to write his expose on the history of Mormonism um or the Joseph Smith and Mormonism and so that's where a lot of this is coming from and so does somebody want to read this first one where he he so he leaves navoo and then he signs a statement does somebody want to read the second paragraph yeah let Julie you just assign the person you can assign whoever you want Nemo do you want to read that one sure can I just say something real quick before I read that um it's the the interesting thing is you know you said how he signed a statement that was already written M it's interesting the speed with which he wrote this expose might indicate that he'd already started writing it before he was sort of on his way out as it were if it's a fairly long expose that comes out very quickly well so one thing that his biographer points out is that a lot of it is is are statements from newspapers or statements from other people and so a lot of it a lot of the bulk of his book is not his own writing it's just what he's pulling from other people so that could be a reason too but yeah he could have very well been having this in his head just a thought yeah well yeah I'll read this thing that's fine right okay you'll recall that before he left navu Bennett signed a testimony saying that Joseph Smith did not teach or believe in the spiritual wife Doctrine Bennett later claimed that he was forced to sign under Jess and that his statement was false he claimed that Joseph Smith met with him in the navu lodge locked the door put the key in his pocket and Drew a pistol on me and said the Peace of my family requires that you should sign an affidavit and make a statement exonerating me from all participation whatever in the spiritual wife Doctrine or private intercourse with females in general and if you do not do it with an apparent cheerfulness I will make catfish bait of you or deliver you over to the danites for execution tonight that's Pleasant wow yeah so I've never heard that before this is brand new to me um yeah so so later on we'll see um his biographers take on this but I just think that's interesting where you see this practice with Joseph and other women with like Martha Brotherton or whatever where he does lock them in the room and he has the key and then he he uh tries to force whatever he's wanting onto this person and we know that when he was martyred he had a gun with him that he fired into the oncoming crowd so we know he carried heat he packed heat and we know that he had a tendency to lock people into a room alone to kind of threaten them and we know the day nights are real so I mean there the components seem to be there what do you think Mike I mean I I I don't buy a lot of what John C Bennett says especially when he kind of gets into these stories because I feel like this is someone like if you um my we we did this in previous episodes when we talked about how Joseph Smith would take kind of like these little fragments of other uh writings and incorporate them into something he's working on I kind of feel like John C Bennett is taking some of what he knows to be true like the danites and he already knows a story about Martha Brotherton being locked in the room and I feel like maybe he's incorporating those in to make make it sound more believable I mean I guess we'll never know but this just doesn't to me this doesn't feel right and it feels like what we talked about last episode where it's like if he was really planning to do this all along it feels like these are opportunities he could have really pulled the tricker quickly if that was his plan and so I I'm skeptical but you know like like you said there there are Parts here that we know are true yeah okay that's good we we don't want to just accept stuff blindly just because it's critical so it's good if you're skeptical he Bennett certainly is a scalla right right and he tries to paint himself as a hero so yeah yeah that and that's you know in the first part that was my takeaway was like you know at the end of the thing it's like there there's no Heroes here it's kind of like you know you got Joseph Smith you got John C Bennett and both of them we can show are doing some not great things and they're also both uh doing some things dishonestly and so I think you have to have the same kind of line of thinking you would with John C Bennett that you would Joseph Smith if you want to be consistent and so um that's kind of my take where I'm like that just seems it almost seems too good to be true if you are uh from the mindset of like someone that's trying to expose Joseph Smith at that time it almost feels too easy I don't know maybe that's just me but that's kind of why I fall on that one the thing the only other thing I'll say is that Joseph was clearly hiding his polygamy and lying about it and he certainly would have feared people finding out about it and certainly Emma freaked out once she found out that he was doing it so I mean there there is a lot that would support that type of scenario yeah and that's the thing right because oh sorry go ahead Nemo no no I was just going to say I guess the way I would look at it is I can believe the overarching premise that Joseph Smith kind of forced his hand into signing an affidavit I'm just not sure I quite by the very dramatic way in which he says it happened and that's just it that that's that's just it because it's like one of those things where it's almost like it just seems too over the top and like we talked about the last episode Joseph Smith and John C Bennett at this time they're almost playing this you know was it mutually assure destruction game right now and so I feel like there probably is a lot of like threats going back and forth like yeah if you do this I'm going to expose you if you expose me I'm going to expose you know all that but the idea he's going to go into a room pull a gun on them it just doesn't feel right but that doesn't mean it didn't happen it just means for me without having something else to corroborate that I'm a little skeptical okay good all right well viewers and listeners that's the good thing we don't want you believing any of us you get to decide what you think is true yeah all right Julia what's next okay so we have that testimony and then um we'll go back to that in a second but in the Warsaw signal so Thomas C sharp editor of the Warsaw signal published in his paper on August 6th of 1842 he says where was where was the necessity of procuring from Bennett an assurance of his Purity the truth is no explanation can be given other than this that Joe was fully aware that benett was in possession of the facts which if made public would bring infamy on himself in the church innocent men do not generally attempt to justify themselves before they are accused so I thought that was interesting so he's of the mindset that Joseph was really trying hard to to say to wash his hands of what Bennett was doing because he was guilty of that okay yeah you know the one thing I would add to that not that it's a huge deal is that um in May is when you start having those trials about um J John C Bennett and spiritual wafer which I believe is later in this this these slides so from the Warsaw signals perspective they might not know about those trial records because Joseph Smith is being accused in May very openly of teaching this so in August when John C Bennett starting write this stuff um Joseph Smith is already being accused so that that's where gets tricky but I do agree that making him sign an affidavit um is definitely trying to get himself get Joseph Smith ahead of the story it's just the timing is is kind of confusing there as far as like because this is written in August so it's like a little after the fact but you know the point still stands that Joseph Smith absolutely is trying to get people to make sure that he's cleaning up that image that he's not engaging in polygamy when he absolutely was yeah that's a good point of the timeline yeah and so this next slide comes from his biographer so you have um so so Bennett's biographer Andrew Smith says that Bennett's actions after he offered originally test excuse me Bennett's actions after he originally testified that Joseph Smith was not involved in anyway with spiritual wirey do not support the story that he was under addess Bennett had remained in for some weeks after being excommunicated Joseph publicly thanked him for his service as governor and Bennett said publicly that he had nothing against anyone in the presidency saying yeah so here so he's just agreeing with Mike where he's like I really don't believe the story of him with a gun with Joseph pulling the gun on on Bennett okay he stays because he stays in navoo he's he's publicly thanked as the governor and he's like oh yeah I have no problems with the with the leaders of the church and so so so Bennett's actions don't really support it although you know we know the story of Martha Brotherton did happen he has a tendency of locking people in and giving them these already signed statements but yeah I think the part with the gun is just just a little too like I don't think he would have feared for his life and stayed in NAU for like two or three weeks after this so yeah isn't isn't there the story of is it William law who feels like he's being threatened by the danites and kind of run out of town it might have even been um Martin Harris but you know they had those stories where like um they were kind of telling them like get out now and they they do and I I can't remember if it's the the witnesses or if it's William law and that's when the danites are starting to kind of kick up and um so so those people were like yeah I I I feared for my safety I got out of town and here John Bennett's like yeah this dude pulled a gun on me and you know by all by all reading that statement makes it seem like Joseph Smith was on unhinged if that's true I'm not staying in town I'm signing that statement I'm getting out and he if he stays for four weeks that does say to me like yeah that he did not have the fear that he seems to imply in his his later you know statement of it yeah yeah so both William and Bennett were were afraid of the danites coming after them so either one of those yeah yeah okay so going forward um so uh mikee do you want to read this one oh if you're there so um this is from the uh sangamo journal from July of uh 15th 1842 and this is um really where he starts to get into the polygamy stuff so um he claims that Joseph Smith has a holy Lodge called order and he says in the preparation they are stripped naked they are then clothed upon the precious ointment uh poured upon the head running down upon the beard and the skirts of the Garment the ungodly oath is then administered in order to prepare them for the spiritual wife operations and save Joe from Public Disgrace and infamy some of them however are not in the secrets um Bennett then list Sydney Rigden um and Orson Pratt and William Marx as uh people who did not know about polygamy um because Joseph had feared that if they did they would leave the church and apostasies so why are we getting into Temple ordinance here yeah that's what my brain jumps yeah um so one thing that I I guess I sharing this because it's interesting because this is one of the first there's no evidence that John C Beno ever went through the temple that he had received any of the ordinances but he's but he knows about it enough that he's that he's sort it's sort of coming through in this expose so I thought that was really interesting and then also he's listenting certain people that don't know about polygamy or that he alleges don't know about it so you have Sydney rigon who and then Joseph um of course tries to advance on Nancy his daughter and then you have um Orson Pratt and then you have the stories of Sarah Pratt where Joseph advances on Sarah then you have William Mars who later made some confusing statements that that lot of the polygamy deniers latch on to anyway so I thought that was really interesting so I guess I wanted to share this is like Bennett's sort of exposing some of the temple rituals he's not quite understanding them and then he's he's also saying that some of the leaders did not know that Joseph was a polygamist but then again he could be using that essentially in the same way as this story with the gun to say okay well here's a little bit of something I know about the way Jose Smith operates and some of the secret Parts I'm going to expose that and make it look like it's about polygamy and and this sort of stuff um and he's really putting a find a point on it that maybe is necessary yeah that's true yeah I would um there is I want to say it's called they had it called like the high and holy order and that was kind of like The Secret Circle that Joseph Smith was doing when he first started kind of only giving the endowment to people almost like his favor so be for people entering into polygamy with him it might be two people that are complicit in that maybe you give your your daughter or your sister to him or your wife and then all a sudden you could I mean I I can't remember the specific so um Lindsay Hansen Park had done this and I haven't listened to it in a very long time but I think she said like early on it was something like 70 75% of the ceilings were people who were into polygamy so there were people getting it early that were not and so this to me shows me that John C Bennett is aware of who is getting endowed and who is getting endowed because they're entering into polygamy versus who is getting endowed because Joseph Smith is close to them and he can't really keep them all the way out so he keeps them in and so the to me and calling it the order I I think it was called the high and holy order I'm not 100% sure on that this does show that he has a lot of information here that tracks later on so I think this is important to show that he is not just throwing crap out in the air about polygamy even if he's embellishing stories and even if he is adding details that we don't like I don't agree with or and some you guys might not agree with um so I think this is important just establishing that he has that inner circle knowledge um that we can then kind of now um you know say that this tracks well yeah so that reminds me so um when you're talking about polygamy so in the research with David berser and then Sandra Tanner they say that actually in 1842 none of the women had been endowed none of the women had had received any Temple ordinances and I don't think and um the Tanner suspect that Joseph never intended to have the women go through the temple at all and then eventually that changed in 1843 whenever they started going through so I guess if men are getting endowed or if the endowment is part of polygamy I think it was just the men and the the power that Joseph had over the men yeah and that reminds me as I'm reading through this there close upon precious ointment poured on the head running down upon the beard and like this reminds me we need to do a a LDS discussions episode about the changes of the nav Temple but but but the Masonic Lodge was always men only or at least for a long long time it was men only so it would make sense if it was cribbed from the Masons that it was that at least it began as a male only ordinance that would make sense and I guess the thing you've got to think about with this then is like what do the men get out of polygamy right particularly when Joseph's practicing polyandry what do these men get out of it this is a way of Joseph giving them something they get to be part of an inner circle they get to be part of a Power Group whatever you want to call it that's what they get out of this because they're not getting anything out the arrangement otherwise yeah yeah true yeah okay yeah okay and and again the only other thing that's true about this past thing it's it that fits the mold is that we know that that Joseph Smith was selective in who he told about uh who told pgy to so this account you know we know that he told some but didn't tell others and that's consistent well even ham even ham didn't know until much later so yeah yeah all right let's keep going okay so this next one I can't remember does anyone want to read this the New York heral I'll do it yeah okay um this is the New York heral uh Bennett claimed to have acquired transcripts of these navu high council's interrogations which he referred to as inquisitions these transcriptions were partially published in the New York Herald Bennett's motives in referring to the transcripts in his public lectures was to prove that Joseph Smith engaged in the same activities that he did indeed according to Bennett Smith tried to seduce the very same women and that was uh that was Andrew Smith in the Saint Le in something called the saintly scoundrel yeah sorry the titles were a little confusing but yeah so he's saying that that Joseph also was seducing these same women that Bennett was accused of seducing and they got him kicked out of the church so I thought that was really interesting to share so he's like yeah pushing it on yeah I was gonna say this this kind of fits in I think to this part of the presentation well but this is we talked about this a little last week and we talked about more in the happiness letter episode but this is when there are a group of guys that are basically being brought to church disciplinary um Courts for this idea of spiritual wery uh among them is Joseph Smith's brother William Smith he's being put on trial he's about to be put on trial for the same thing um Joseph Smith stops it and there's some quote something like you know I will not stand one more second to to hear the slander towards my family and then all of a sudden they they withdraw William Smith from being put on trial they with they redact his name in the newspaper accounts of this and the the point is that during this trial we have three different women who testify that four different men are all telling them that they were taught this principle directly from Joseph Smith um and John C Bennett was accused of telling these women that Joseph Smith was already operating in that way already and so this um whether I don't know for sure if he had the exact transcripts or what he had but absolutely when John C Bennett and William Smith has BR Joseph's brother and these other I think there's like two other men are being accused of this Joseph Smith is already engaging in it and so yeah this is a fair way to say Joseph Smith is doing the same thing now there's probably differences in in the way it's being presented or maybe because Joseph Smith is the one um when he's approaching these women he doesn't maybe have to give the Hard Sell that John C Bennett does to say hey baby it's it's okay you know um whereas you know Joseph Smith as we talked about in our our episodes on that uh was able to really um Leverage The the idea that he's a prophet on these women to get them to um to submit so um the point is just to say that whether I don't know for sure if his transcripts are perfect from these interrogations um or whatever you want to call them um but it does track that these women and the men accused are all saying that this came from Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith was doing this at the same time um whether or not you want to call it polygamy spiritual Wier whatever you want to call it well I think it's important that we we recognize what it's being called in that it's being called spiritual wery uh and that suits Joseph Smith very well because it being called spiritual wery means that later down the line if Joseph Smith does have to make public polygamy then um what can he call it polygamy that spiritual Ry that was something different that was something wrong bad my polygamy good right so y It's seems simple but actually the fact that it was getting called spiritual wree the stuff that Bennett was doing it was no different to what Joseph Smith was doing functionally but giving it a different name makes it easier to ostracize and push away I mean it's sex with people that aren't your spouse yeah yeah ultimately under the guise of some sort of religious justification yeah yeah yeah yeah all right Julia okay so so yeah you guys have a whole episode about the happy newsletter so we don't need to go into a whole lot of information about that and let me just let me just take the time to remind everybody that these LDS discussions episodes are available as their own podcast there's a YouTube playlist on the Mormon stories uh podcast episode um a and so you can wa it's best to watch these these in in sequence so that you can get the full story CU these things build and I tell people that every episode I'll tell you that right here in the middle go back and watch these things in order and you'll get a lot more out of um this whole series and the happiness letter episode is definitely one of the most important ones we did so yeah so we have the happiness letter from John C Bennett who published it in the singon journal on August 19th of 1842 this was a letter given to Nancy Ron from Joseph teaching her about polygamy and I've heard that there's there's a a research out there that that shows that Joseph Smith did did not um publish the happiness letter do we know anything about that I don't know I haven't seen any of that research but I we were we were told someone had commented when we did the happiness letter episode that there was that they've known for I think he said three years and I can't remember the name of the person did I apologize but whoever did it is actually someone who has put out videos that I think are actually really good he's from BYU and I'm I'm really upset I can't remember his name right now because I feel like like a jerk but um I had asked him if he would send me any of it and he he did not respond um so I I don't know they're saying that there's there's going to be this forthcoming uh study that's going to show that Joseph Smith wasn't the author of it um from what they what other people have published in that regard um it's kind of like what we're dealing with here where a lot of the stuff in the happiness letter tracks really well to what Joseph is teaching um and so I think the idea from a apologetics apologetic side is to say John C Bennett knows some of these things Joseph Smith is teaching and he's weaving this masterpiece um that basically uses these these teachings that are out there and then also makes it really really subtle that it's about polygamy which to me doesn't make sense because as you could see here John C Bennett is not one for being subtle when he's trying to accuse Joseph Smith so again I don't think it makes sense if if the happiness letter was written by John C Bennett I think it' be much more obvious and upfront like hey you need to have you know you need to marry and have sex with me this is what God wants you know there's no you know but it's not that's not what the happiness letter is and that's I think why um when you read the happiness letter against what Joseph Smith is teaching elsewhere you could see how Joseph Smith is really uh able to leverage some of the manipulative language he's using elsewhere but the point is I haven't seen the research that's supposedly coming out what I have seen doesn't really address those problems and um I know when um Jonathan ster and Christopher C Smith talked about um Garrett Dirk's writings on it they made those same points like there are a lot of these teachings in the happiness letter that people know contemporaneously I think someone maybe Sydney rigon or someone's writing a letter to their wife or someone and they're using some of the stuff that Joseph's teaching that Happ happens to be in the happiness letter um we could see some of being taught publicly um we'll get to that a little bit like if there's no sin there's no accuser and so the the point is a lot of people want to distance the happiness letter from Joseph Smith because it is so damning once you understand the context but I haven't seen anything so far that really convinces me it's not Joseph Smith yeah I have thoughts so um if it is if it is the case that John C Bennett wrote it that is the salamant letter on steroids because it has been quoted in general conference multiple times it is accept by contemporary church leadership right now as the words of Joseph Smith and they teach from it as such they say the Prophet Joseph Smith declared happiness is the object and design of our existence so you're like well okay so if if it is the case and I'm not saying that just because they say so doesn't mean John C Bennett could have written it but then they who claim to speak for God and are guiding the members of the church and whatever have been led to believe something false for a very long time and and no divine intervention has been occurring and I've done a video that shamess self plug yeah yeah we you can include the links there for the show notes Nemo but um and for those who haven't heard that episode yet and are just joining us one of the key teachings in the happiness letter as far as I understand is this idea that what's wrong in one circumstance can be right in another and Joseph is sort of teaching this moral relativism to one of his uh one of the women he wants to you know conquer basically by telling her I know you've been taught adulter is a sin but if God makes it okay then it can be awesome you know what I mean and that's yeah yeah salamander letter on Stairway to to do a really quick Pyon to what Nemo said you know if you watched when we did the 116 Pages episode there's the Revelation and again I hav't it's been a while so I'm going to get get a little bit off but God tells Joseph Smith in this Revelation you can't replicate the pages because if someone uh tries to uh like if Lucy Harris had them and then she Alters them she's going to make you look like a fool and I will not allow my profits basically to be made to look like fools and ano's point if you want to believe John C Bennett did this then the 116 Pages um kind of Revelation makes no sense because on one hand God's like I will never let our prophets look like they did something they didn't and then on the other hand with this one it's like well you know it doesn't really matter so I I do feel like there's that that lack of consistency when and that's one of the things we've really harped down with this series is if you take it all the way through and you take this one data point and you say okay let's apply it elsewhere that's where Things Fall Apart really quickly yeah thanks Mike yeah all right what's next Julia okay so okay so so there's another thing so in his book John C Bennett described a secret women's organization he said that there were three levels in that organization and I hopefully I'm saying this correct the cyprian Saints the chambered Sisters of Charity and the cloistered Saints and then again I just wanted to note that John cett doesn't know these things firsthand he has never been through any sort of Temple ordinance at all so this is just this is just his understanding or his version of of what's going on okay so this Relief Society stuff or what uh no uh this is like secret secret stuff in the temple or like I haven't heard of any of that have any of you heard of those names before the cian Saints or anything like that no well there's no there's a reason why you haven't heard of it okay spoiler yeah okay all right so how do you how did you say it Nemo cyprian cian cian okay so he says the lowest is called the cyprian Saints and this consisted of those warm-hearted carelessly generous females who had been betrayed into an indiscretion and forced to confess and who thereafter were designated as herodin for the church leaders okay so this is what he's saying is the first this lowlevel and yeah anyway a great not a great sounding thing yeah I don't want to be one of those that's okay so then the next one is the chambered sisters of charity and he says or the Saints of the green Veil and he says these were composed of women somewhat less disposed to free to a free distribution of their charms but still sufficiently Pro prodigal to bestow them on occasion without benefit of a marriage ceremony if a church official wished to win a chambered Sister of Charity Bennett explained he asked Joseph who looked at his peep Stone and there inquired the will of Heaven if he desired the woman for himself the answer was no and so this is mental this is his supposed middle level of of a it's like John C Bennett's guide to how loose women in navu are it's just horrible they don't need a marriage ceremony Joseph looks in his peep Stone okay it would have been I'll just no I'll wait till the next one to make my comment all right okay and so this next one is the cloistered Saints uh the most honored among the navu women said Bennett were the cloistered Saints or the Saints of the Black Veil who went through a marriage ritual and became a secret or spiritual wives for for Joseph Joseph Joseph he reported had at least seven but out of deference to the reputations he listed them by initial only and so he's saying there's these three levels like this I don't know how to explain it without being super mean the the really easy women the middle ground and then the and then the like the higher ranking that's not you being mean Julia that is exactly what johy Bennett is trying to say is that's what he's trying to do and um Julia I don't know if you did you have the original um the original biography from John C Bennett the original expose I have it or right have you read it cuz you're missing a page here because actually the way they know which of the groups they going to is it's not the peep Stone it's not Joseph Smith Stone they go into a room at the temple and they actually have Jo Joseph Smith's hat and they put the Hat on the women's head and it sorts them into these three groups it's the salting hat yeah how did I I'm just kidding I'm kidding I'm just I made that up I just think like I read this I'm think I'm thinking of this stupid Harry Potter reference because this is to me to me this is so stupid like I'm like like this is why when there are people who are like yeah like there are people like John C Bennett's is hero and you read crap like this I'm like no he's not John C Bennett's a piece of crap it's just you know well we have Mormon Voldemort here so you know John tell us how's that yeah it's just what's the bad one what's the bad house Slytherin Slytherin Slytherin yeah so Slytherin is the cloistered no wait is that the cloer Saints or is that the I don't even know the green the green Veil The Black Veil and I can't remember if there's any Veil for the first one n need Avil that easy apparently it's just it's just yeah that's just it it's like it's like seriously it seems like you put a hat on it's like this woman is more than willing to sleep with many men she is the cloistered Saint it's like this is so dumb so okay so are you about to tell us that this is just him making stuff up it's sure about the tell all right let's keep going to some degree okay so do somebody want to read this paragraph are you just tell someone tell someone Mike do you want to read this one Mike yeah in her book uh Fawn Brody points out that it is impossible to judge the accuracy of Bennett stories except for they are supplemented by more reliable data there is no other reference to the cyprian Saints chambered Sisters of Charity or cloistered Saints in any available document yet the cloistered Saints roughly correspond to the system of plural wives Joseph had set up whether the others were Bennett's own secret ramifications of the plural wife system or whether he simply made them up out of whole cloth to make his expose as lured as possible cannot be ascertained okay so she doesn't say it's bunk but she says there's it can't be verified yeah so one thing that you'll notice if you read his his expose is that he's really into names he's really into like making groups like he talks about that with the uh the masonry and stuff like that he's just like oh we had this secret group and the danites had this club and like he's he's all about that and so this makes sense coming from his mind about naming them these things but then then uh Brody says you know these are actually things that were happening so maybe he that's just his understanding with the I can't remember what chambered SS or cled I can't remember so there was like essentially a secret society of women that would entered into polygamy which kind of makes sense because they're all in on this secret essentially right right and it would make sense that if he and Joseph were doing shenanigans that they wouldn't write him down at this point that it could have just been things that he and Joseph said to each other but that never ha never have validation because they were never written down Joseph n I'm thinking of calling them this what do you think and they're having that low conversation that sort of thing but but Mike's Mike's skeptical which I like we like skepticism no it's just it's one of those things where this is why it's so frustrating because you could tell John C Bennett has an inside track on this stuff because he knows the women at least you know up what seven of them that he's he's going to name that we now can look at and go yes joseo Smith was was married to them poly polygamous so because we know that we know that John C Bennett has an Insider view on the flip side then you see stuff like this and you don't know what to make of it because to me this just seems silly because to Aon Brody's point you would think somewhere there would be some reference to these different things if they happen I know the whole point of the temple is secrecy and the whole point of masonry is secr is secrecy it just it seems so over the toop to me um that it's just really difficult but at the same time to Fon Brody's Point other point because he knows a lot of the details that do line up um with other historical records that we have it really makes it trickier um and so that's why I think you know that's one of the things we've tried to do through this whole series is to say look we want to stick with the at least for me I want to stick with the data that is mostly um corroborated by other sources and in this case to me not only is it not corroborate it just it seems so comically bad so that that's where I'm at what's your take oh go ahead Nemo I want I just want to make a a quick broad appeal to the ex Mormon Community particularly um that you can learn a lesson from John C Bennett John C Bennett knew enough to expose some of the bad stuff that Joseph Smith was doing didn't need to make stuff up in the same way we don't need hyperbole in our discussions about the wrongs that the church does because it's it's self-evident enough as it is that there are bad things going on so we can just talk about those factually we don't need to be hyperbolic about these things truth the truth is bad enough let's not erode our credibility by embellishing that would an hour and a half yeah that's not Mike Julie let's hear your take on all this oh yeah I just like he he needed to sell his expose like he like you'll seen we'll seen this in part two but he lasts two years without any sort of other income besides his book in so of course he wants to make a big splash with it and so having these little things in there will help it sell so like so I think that he falsified a lot of things he's not a super credible witness but at the same time he got a lot of things correct and like fwn Pro points out is that a lot of these things were correct and we'll see them here in a few slides so like you so I think my main thing about Bennett is don't don't dismiss him he needs to be studied he needs to not be dismissed yeah yeah yeah okay but take it with take it with the great ass salt right right right okay all right uh next slide Bennett's list okay so on page 256 of his expose Bennett lists seven supposed wives of Joseph Smith Joe Smith was privately married to his spiritual wives in the case of Mrs as by Apostle Brigham Young and that of Miss lb by Elder Joseph Bates Noble then there are the cases of Mrs B Mrs D Mrs S Mrs G Miss B etc etc now I know you're a nerd enough to where you went and looked up whether those initials cerated with actual known wives right yeah yeah so that's the next slide okay let's look at it so this is this is explaining his list so Mrs as is Agnes Smith and then lb is Louisa deman and Mrs B is prendia bule um which is that Z sister and then Mrs D is Elizabeth dery Mrs S is Patty sessions and and every asterisk is is the exact same amount of letters that are needed so these are these all fit perfectly and then Mrs G is Jane Gully and this is is a woman who's she's not I don't think she's in Todd Compton's book but if you watch Mormonism live he Bill reel breaks that down really well of why he thinks that Jane Gully is one of them because of the land deeds and so that's one that I think is really interesting and then the last one on the list is Mrs is Miss B and fwn Brody says that it was possibly Sarah Babson but outside of Brody's saying that in her book I have no idea who Sarah Babson is if anyone knows more like I tried looking up on Jose's sth papers and I couldn't find anything so I don't know who this person is so okay so so uh oh Nemo's got a book open is that in loneliness that's in L for visual reference yeah and and you know this is why we can't just throw out um you know uh John C Bennett because he he listed at least we know seven or eight are confirmed by the Mormon church as legitimate wives of Joseph Smith so in this case he's got he's he's hitting the Target right yep exactly yeah yeah okay yeah and so if we go to the next slide all right okay so um so three so this is something I thought was really interesting three weeks after his expose was published and there was published on September 12th of 1842 the times and Seasons republished the statement on marriage so like DNC 101 with statements attached of the 12 men that signed it two of them were polygamists and of the 19 women who signed it five of the women either knew of polygamy were wives of Joseph Smith or their husbands were polygamous yeah so that's Joseph Smith denying poy having other people sign while they're practicing polygamy yeah but I'd never connected that that came out almost in response to John C Bennett's expose I'd never connected that before so that's nice to connect that timeline up yeah I mean that's pretty dirty that's super dirty yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah and that that follows it's not just lying it's convincing other people to lie you know what I mean yeah yeah it's it's it's and that's the thing about um one of the things you hear about polygamy with the way Joseph Smith does it is it's almost like to to what Julia just said where some of the women that signed it had men that were husbands that were involved in polygamy and it's almost like when you get someone involved it makes everyone complicit because then it's a secret that you know assures mutually assured destruction and so in this case Joseph Smith is lying he's having other people lie and he's doing it under the overall arching theme that God wants us and that is why this is just so damning to me because it shows that Joseph Smith is not only willing to lie himself but he's also willing to put other people people in positions to lie which you know obviously again doesn't make sense if you believe um that these are men that speak to God and that God is rewarding Joseph Smith for lying it it gets really complicated quickly but also throwing John C Bennett under the bus for Spiritual wifery when he's really doing the same thing Joseph doing yeah very hypocritical yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah so in this next one so liar snow is one of the ones who signed and years later she was asked how she could have signed such a document she replied that they putting down John cett spiritual Wy and she says at the time the sisters of the Rel Society signed our article I was married to the prophet so she's admitting that she's lying I made No Illusion to any other system or we made No Illusion to any other system of marriage than Bennett's his was prostitution and it would and it was truly his and he succeeded in pandering his course on the credulity of the unsuspecting by making them believe that he was thus authorized by the prophet in those articles there is no reference to Divine plural marriage we aim to put down its opposite so I guess it it's so elizar snow star was saying I'm not lying this is what John C we were not doing what John C was doing his was prostitution and Justice was divine plural marriage does it not say that we know of no other system of marriage other than that oh that's true she does say that yeah again she's lying I guess she's lying yeah this is this is a lie this is absolute garbage and and this is what happens when you have to to convince yourself that you are doing something that is right when you know with every fiber of your being it's not honest and it's not right because this to to Nemo's point the statement she signed is not doing what she says is doing here and and this is what happens when you are involved in a system with such you know Joseph Smith used a lot of manipulation of of God to get them to do things and and now you have to later on in life justify that because you don't want to admit you got it wrong but this is a key insight into how people will justify these things to themselves and I think it applies now to current church leaders they will have similar thought patterns when you challenge them on lies they'll go well actually what I was talking about was and they'll try and redefine terms or I think um who is it is it uh last name Jonathan streer talks about how the leaders of the church say that they teach truth not the truth they teach truth and truth to them can mean whatever they want it to mean because divinely inspired truth is a Mormonism it's a Mormon term so yeah early apologetics yeah that's what it sounds like it just sounds like early apologetics me yeah okay like trying to make it make sense to her yeah yeah yeah okay all right so so I just before we go on that that's again sorry just to bring this point home that is the advantage of having it be called spiritual wrey and not polygamy because they can say no spiritual wiy is bad but polygamy what we were doing was fine right okay okay so I just wanted to to show in this way all the women that Jose was married to so at the time John sa Bennett was excommunicated Jose had actually taken 10 polygamous wives not the seven that Bennett had suggested so you have Fanny Lucinda and then so I don't know if we need to list them all Louisa Zina prendia Agnes Sylvia Mary Elizabeth Patty Miranda Nancy Johnson and then Elizabeth dery and so Bennett could have been correct of the six of the seven women he claimed and with the addition of Jane Gully and and if the identity of this last one was known we would it would make it easier to but but every single woman he lists essentially he gets correct so I just and it's possible Joseph had women Bennett didn't know about right right yeah yeah well and Fanny Al Fanny algar wasn't a a wife so I mean you know we we did an episode on that but like to that you could almost take like John C Bena wouldn't have known about that because that was before he even got there and that was not a marriage and um you know Louisa Pendleton I I think she was considered the first white but that's one that was before he really ramps up so you know yeah so a lot of people call Louisa Bean the first wife right the first plural wife pous wife whatever you call it so really if you look at that way John Bennett's got most of them and um you know really shows that that he is an Insider whether or not you know that and that's why we have to then be skeptical but also understand he's not coming out of this you know just making stuff up out of thin air I think we established pretty firmly last episode that he was an Insider almost too much so yeah for those who didn't watch it he was mayor he was chief of the Legion chief justice Quarter Master General un yeah like he was everything and oh let's not forget like co-president of the church y y right so I mean standing in for Sydney Ren yeah yeah yeah okay all right Julia next slide is allegations against Joseph Smith okay so in Bennett xose he tells several stories where Joseph Smith attempted to coers women into being in a relationship with him he tells the story of at least seven other women so he tells he tells stories of Sarah Pratt Emil white Martha Brotherton Nancy Rigden Katherine Warren and called the Widow Miller and Melissa shindle and so he's saying there's seven other women that he tried to co so here's seven that he did take into polygamy and there's seven more that that he tried to take him to polygamy so maybe these people said no yeah well I mean the stories that he tells yeah they the answer to Joseph is no okay yeah all right um now let's talk about Sarah Pratt yeah so it's hard to tell Bennett's story without telling some of Sarah's story as well does some Nemo do you want to read some of this sure yeah Steven H Godard and his wife Zer zerah zeroah stated under oath that Bennett had sexual relations with Sarah Pratt while she was living with them while her husband was serving a mission tracks uh when their testimonies were published Sarah marched straight to their home and confronted them about it Steven reportedly ran out the back door when he saw her coming and zeroah broke down in tears saying that hyam showed up with the affidavits already written and forced them to sign them saying Joseph and the church must be saved Mormon historian Richard s van Vagner concluded that the Godard stories of Bennett visiting Sarah nightly in October were highly improbable Jacob B binos also reported that Bennett had elicit intercourse with Sarah Pratt but van vager dismissed it as slander as was m as the months Jacob said Bennett had been visiting Sarah awesome was actually home with her while she was sick and pregnant so there's an alibi yeah that right yeah yeah um so Julie what's important about the sled for you well so so a lot of people say that one of the reasons why Sarah or Bennett are not trustworthy is because they they had a relationship with each other and so but so she's really upset that the that her friends are signing this thing and so she comes into them into their house and the husband runs out the back door and she's like well so ham gave me this piece of paper and told me to sign it and so that's why that was published and so she's really naturally Sarah would be really frustrated and then Richard or the historian Richard Von wagen and says this is that that they were that Bennett and Sarah were together is highly improbable and then also Jacob story um doesn't make sense because the timeline doesn't match because ORS and Pratt was home anyway so just taking that off people who say that uh Sarah is not trustworthy or the Bennett's not trustworthy because they were in a relationship you can take that off the table because according to this historian and these other records that didn't happen okay all right okay so in so in Bennett's story of Joseph Smith he uh in Bennett's story of Joseph Smith's advances on sahat he said that after her hasb been left on a mission Joe ordered the Bishops to restrict her in her allowance and reduce her to a state of absolute want and suffering in order to make her a more easy prey Bennett claimed that Joseph asked for his assistance in obtaining s Prat as one of his wives and he refused to help and we see happening he he ask Jose it's a practice of Joseph to ask men's help in obtaining women so this that makes sense although again um Bennett's trying to pck trying to paint himself as a hero so who knows if that's actually accurate but um so Bennett claimed that Joseph okay yeah so in fact in fact Bennett claims to have warned Sarah of Joseph's intentions Bennett's Story Goes that Joseph took Bennett to Sarah's house anyway and asked her to keep a secret Joseph said Sarah prad the Lord has given you to me as one of my spiritual wives I have the blessings of Jacob granted to me and that's the language from DNC 132 Sarah gets upset and says she cares nothing for the blessings of Jacob and that one good husband was good enough for her Benny claims that Joseph went and visited Louisa Bean for two hours after he left Sarah and I just wanted to know that Louisa Bean had been married to Joseph Smith what was the date um on April 5th of 1841 so like here he's he's advancing on this woman and when she says no he goes and visits one of his other wives or like you pointed out that she was Louisa Bean or was seen as his first pgus wife so I just think that wasir if he was he was consing himself horny and he went from wife to wife that's how I'm seeing it yeah yeah forgive the graphic nature and and if you want more details on how Joseph Smith used to use men to get access to other women we did an episode all about that I believe Sam shell was on that one as well um but we should put the link to that in the show notes because we went over Joseph Smith's essentially sex trafficking oh yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah and Todd Compton's book again um with the uh incred loneliness he talks about having how Joseph it was a practice of his to use an intermediary so I don't know whether Bennett was he claims he was and we just know that it was a practice of Joseph's to do that okay yeah so yeah I mean because Joseph Smith used women too I mean he used basically what Joseph Smith would do is he would find someone that the potential Target potential wife whatever you want to whatever you want to term that um Ed and they would send them to to try to convince them to do this you know again we just don't know if John C Bennett actually did this or like Julia said John C Bennett is going to phrase us to make one himself look like the hero and two to make Joseph Smith look as Despicable as possible so you know we could even have something where he does tell Sarah Pratt you know you need to marry me and then at the same time maybe she rejects him and he just goes home but that little detail just makes you know I mean so that's so we know parts of this are true it's just hard to determine kind of how much of the over AR story is correct it's worth mentioning that um people often say that you know if DNC 132 is correct and that the purpose of pgy was to Bear the fruit uh to Bear bodies for The Souls of men um then why did Joseph Smith marry these older women and I think to the point about using women also is that some of these women became very useful in coercing the younger girls yep exactly I three three three that we know of that he was using to go around and kind of recruit or convince whatever phrase you want Ed there to to get women to agree to marry Joseph Smith and they were they were the older ones going to the younger ones almost like a mother figure which makes it grosser to me but that's what it was yeah yeah very true okay okay so more on Sarah so there's more on Sarah so Bennett claims that Joseph approached Sarah again to which she responded Joseph if you ever attempt anything of the kind with me again I will make a full disclosure to Mr Pratt on his return home depend upon it I certainly will do it Joe replied sister Pratt I hope you will not expose me for if I suffer all must suffer so do not expose me he then threatened if you should tell I will ruin your reputation Bennett told how Joseph sacrificed a lamb and put its Blood on the do the doorpost of Sarah's house and this act and and that this act appeased the destroying Angel so that the last bit kind of sounds a little far-fetched to me um this idea although it although it is really interesting to me to to think about how later the blood atonement comes in with Brigham Young And so to me through his reading his expose I can see if that there are traces of the blood atonement teaching with Joseph um although I don't I don't believe the story with the that just seems a little I don't know Joseph Joseph was one for theatrics in many ways I mean you've got to kind of be that sort of theatrical individual to try and run this sort of organization you've got to have that sort of Charisma and um he was into his folk magic and these sorts of things as We Know so this old story very old biblical story of putting Lamb's Blood on the door ltil so that Passover happens and the the destroying angel passes over the children um he could re easily you I could see him easily repurposing that yeah now that you say that like with his treasure digs he I think sheep was an like a white sheep and a black sheep were often what he sacrificed I think it speaks to Joseph's love of symbolism and kind of those taking those parts of ancient culture and making them part of his day today I I could see it happening is is what I'm saying I guess Mike what do you think I I I'm just it's one of those things it's kind of like earlier I just read I'm like uh just it feels to me it feels like too much but you know it's kind of like um what we were talking about earlier with Nemo it's like sometimes I hear a story like this and I'm like you don't need it it's important the story is important and it's important to try to figure out the best you can what's true but like to what Nemo was saying earlier like we have so many issues like I feel like sometimes getting into like a story about blood and a doorknob to me it's not that it's not important it's just it doesn't make sense to me and so to me I'm just like I don't I don't even want to really deal with it because I I don't think it's necessary but you know to to all of your points as well you know we do have all of these stories where you know Joseph Smith has um gone after people who go after him publicly so I I believe he would would do that and with the happiness letter he has the newspapers um or I shouldn't say we don't know that he did it specifically but the newspapers he's in charge of are publishing things calling Nancy ran basically a so yeah we know that Joseph Smith retaliates against people who speak out uh blood on a doorknob just seems a bit much for me and that's our that's our next slide right Julia yeah yeah let's let's show oh crap you do you want to read it Mike yeah uh from the sangamo journal uh July 22nd 1842 it reads Joe Smith in a speech in navoo on Thursday the 14th um instructed I think and which was heard by Two Gentlemen of our city said he wish Bennett was in hell he had given him he had given him more trouble than any man he ever had to do with Joe was undoubtedly sincere in his expression of his wishes the article then continues later it says in the same speech he declared that Mrs Pratt the wife of oron Pratt um had been a um uh redacted from her mother's breast yeah blank from her mother's breast this was the lady which Bennett says Joe attempted to seduce and who resisted all his efforts with the heroism of insulted virtue and the title of this slide is did Joseph Smith let shame Sarah Pratt so Julia tell us uh your thoughts on this slide yeah so I guess to me it sort of backs up his story earlier where he's saying like Sarah if you don't do this I'm going to ruin your reputation and then you hear these two people are listening to Joseph and Joseph is ruining her reputation he's and I'm assuming that the word is I think other historians have said but it's just a blank line as you can see there she's a she's a blank from her mother's breast and so he's saying this publicly to all the church members and and again Joseph will do this to other people who leave the church he will just say and we see that practice now where when people are kicked out of the church people say not true or very unkind things about people so yeah so this just kind of gives credibility to what Bennett was saying earlier Y and it's backed up by the Nancy Rigdon thing too because that's the same thing that happens to Nancy Rigdon although I think that's more done by um people connected to Joseph Smith and the church as opposed to Joseph doing it on the pulpit yeah yeah it gives me kind of he doth protest too much vibes uh in that he is trying to distance himself from these sorts of activities and so is being very condemnatory and it shows a very unchristian streak that he kind of developing in in Joseph in that sense and that continues through to the modern church now of you know condemning people and saying these things about people horrible things about people that either disagree with you or that you feel like their actions are immoral or whatever you're like well what did Jesus do with the woman brought to him in adultery told her to go away and sin no more that could have been the attitude Joseph taken if he really was worried that she wasn't being a virtuous woman but instead he chose to put her name uh out there in public and condemn her publicly and say horrible things about her um which well knowing that he's in this position of power yeah uh propositioning vulnerable women and other men's wives and even teenage girls exactly that's the point then shame the people who decline his advances in his position of power is just particularly heinous and uh I I remember Richard Bushman in an interview said that one of his takeaways from learning about Joseph Smith was that he didn't end up liking him that much now I don't know if that's what Richard Bushman would say today but I I think I remember Richard Bushman faithful Mormon historians say that at least some of what he learned about Joseph Smith made him not like Joseph very much and this I think a lot of people go through that phase with Smith a lot of people they start to learn about a lot of this stuff they're like well I still believe he's a prophet but they will go down the flawed man argument because it's hard not to see regardless of what you believe about him as a prophet or not it's hard not to see a deeply flawed man when you hear these sorts of things yeah yeah yeah Todd Compton's book did that for me where it's like it it shows you a different aspect of Joseph that I had no idea was a thing I didn't I was totally unaware of his attitude and things so yeah I yeah and Julia next slide is f Brody commenting on this or is this a different yes so she so she's talking about yeah so in her book no man knows my history F Brody writes Miss so so Mrs Pratt Sarah Pratt never published a statement on her own but in later years two men um obtain interviews with her one Joseph Smith Joseph Smith's eldest son quoted her as saying no Joseph your father never said an improper word to me in his life he knew better there is no truth in the reports that have been circulated about him in this regard he was was always the Christian gentleman and a noble man so she's denying it but one thing that's interesting is there's another guy named this is wilh v ville or whatever he says on in his book in the Mormon portrait he quotes her as mentioning Joseph's dastardly attempt on me and there was serious trouble between the prophet and Orson Pratt after the letters after the latter returned from England Mrs Pratt was subject to an intense smear campaign and the couple nearly left the church and this is again that's from Fon Brody's so she's so she's saying s pra later denied that Joseph did anything according to this Joseph's eldest son and then in Mormon portraits they that he did of course do this thing and then um so one thing that so to my knowledge Orson Pratt and S Pratt were excommunicated from the church and later rejoined on January 20th of 1843 so just for a short period of time and Orson was reinstated as a as an apostle it's unclear if Sarah was excommunicated with with Orson in 1842 but she was later excommunicated in Salt Lake on October 4th of 1874 for apostasy do we know anything about that um if we talk about it later somebody um if you go to the next slide I think is what is she talks about oh actually hang on I wanted to pause for a second so people I guess a question people could ask is why would Sarah Pratt deny that Joseph Smith made these advances on her he he publicly sled shamed her he was like the happy like all these things are happening I guess the happiness letter was Nancy but like there's a lot of problems with Sarah denying it anyway so but there's another character um who also denied polygamy and this is Emma Smith so despite having been a participate participant in four of Joseph Smith's plural marriage unions the partr sisters and the Lauren sisters 36 years later in an interview by her children in 1879 Emma Smith denied that Joseph Smith was a polygamist there was no Revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives there were some rumors of something else of the sort which I which I asked my husband he assured me that there that all that there was he assured me that all there was of it that in a chat about plural wives he said well such a system might be possible might might possibly be if everybody if everybody was agreed to it and would behave as they should but they would not and besides it was contrary to the will of Heaven no such thing as polygamy or spiritual Wy was taught publicly or privately before my husband's death that I have now or have ever had knowledge of question did he not have other wives than yourself answer he had no other wife but me nor did he to my knowledge ever have her son Joseph pressed did he not hold Mater marital relationships with women other than yourself she answered Ed he did not have improper relations with any women that ever came to my knowledge so according to that one she's denying it several times right there and so I just think that's interesting where even though she was present for four she's still denying that he was a polygamist and so serat yeah then context though is this is about the time where there's been the Schism they've stayed behind Brigham Young's lot have gone off and so one of the ways that they can distinctly distinguish themselves as proper and correct and blame everything on Brigham is to say they well he started polygamy we never did it and she can deny it outright to try and lend legitimacy to her son's claim to be the next Prophet yeah yeah true yeah yeah and that's just Emma I guess boldfaced lies on Emma's part which just shows that there was a lot of shadiness going on if if Emma was his wife and he's lying you know if she's lying about all this stuff when we know that she knew it just shows just shadiness all around right it's like when Eliza are no just we just show that she was lying to when she signed that I mean I want to give like Emma the benefit of the doubt and say it could be something on onlines of you know she went through this ordeal of having Joseph betray her constantly you know sexually with other people and she's almost to the point of blocking it out of her mind and just denying it and saying no that didn't happen wasn't a thing and she's just she's just flat out denies it to herself and others because it's painful I don't know it's purely speculative but that's a kind reading into it rather than maybe the other thing I was suggesting which is she's lying to try and Shore up her son and her part of the movement's position so your your view Mike no I I I I I tend to want to be more on the side that Nemo's taking which is just to say when you go through horrible things and you're you know your husband's cheated on you um whether or not you justify that through you know God or not um and then you have this chance with your family to try to tell your side of the story and to try to shape that narrative because you don't want your your husband to reme be remembered as someone who had you know dozens of wives on the side um you know I think that there is that motivation there that isn't necessarily her you know sitting around going oh my goodness I have these idiots fooled I think it's more just that's who she wants people to remember not just Joseph for but more importantly in my opinion her family's name for because that's all she has left after Joseph Smith is killed so for her kids and all that you want them to remember um Joseph Smith as someone that he wasn't because you know you don't want them to know all the the bad details and so I guess that is a more charitable charitable view but that's kind of how I fall too yeah yeah well it's rough stuff and am I right in understanding that's what led to the Community of Christ as they are now to have that position of Joseph didn't practice polygamy for a very long time was off the this right until they changed that in the they confronted that in the 60s or whatever I think yeah because of how Emma did not talk about it yeah and T yeah yeah okay yeah and so what this is what Sarah Sarah Pratt's apostasy was about right yeah so in his dialogue article titled Sarah Pratt the shaping of a Mor apostate historian Rich historian Richard Von Wagner said that corneli Paddock a longtime friend of Sarah wrote in a wrote on March 3rd of 18 of 1882 a letter to Thomas Greg the wickedness which came to Sarah's knowledge in NAU in NAU destroyed all her faith in Mormonism and she brought up her children to who detest the system and so like it according to this one you know she was excommunicated later in Salt Lake it sounds like she just never really had like lost faith in 1842 and they just sort of kept with it because of her husband standing in the church and so to me it sounds like her denial the allegation that Sarah denied that Joseph Smith made these advances doesn't seem really accurate because of how she lived the rest of her life yeah it sounds like she never got over Joseph's advances and lost her faith in Joseph in the church yeah realiz for apostasy it's also really interesting that Orson Pratt he had a really hard time with all this and that's one of the reasons why he was excommunicated in 1842 but then later he even takes on polygamous wives so like it's just the whole thing is really complicated with yeah I think once she realized the system that she's involved with treats women as chatt in many ways I think that understandably would put you on a different route moving forward yeah yeah and you know not to be a jerk but I you know I think it's a lot easier to see why why men would would uh end up liking polygamy and women would end up not liking polygamy and um I think with Orson Pratt yeah at first he was probably upset because he comes back home from a mission and all of a sudden his wife is married to Joseph Smith but then you realize you could get other women who you could take your pick with and um I I think we covered more o oron PR quotes back in our our episodes on that but yeah I think it you know to give a little bit less charitable view to Orson PR I could kind of see why he all of a sudden would later on be like oh I guess I could do this too you know um so yeah that that's the messiness and the ugliness of of polygamy for sure yeah yeah well I think this concludes our the portion today about uh polygamy and spiritual wery and now it's time to address the question uh were there abortions in navoo and what was John C Bennett's role is that right yeah so now we're talking about the abortion aspect okay um does somebody um I don't know I I'll read okay uh so the slide says navoo abortions all this is quote this is from willhelm while um he writes quote all decent people in navoo says Mr K regarded Bennett as a perfect scoundrel and he was the prophet's pilotes is that right pilotes I think so was with him day and night Mr web says he was a very small villainous looking man I hated him from sight ambition and women filled his soul that's on brand he was full of low cunning and lenti justness says Mrs Pratt several well-informed witnesses tell me that here's the important part he used he used to promise abortion to those females that objected to the blessings of Abraham on the ground of fear of the consequences I heard him preach against the Gentiles said a lady of 88 years to me he seemed raving mad I said the fellow is a devil but my friend warned me not to talk like that of the best friend of the Prophet when would that that that uh promise abortion to those females when would that first have been penned Julia do you know this quote or him him making that part this seems like an amalgamation of several people's quotes because it's mentioning several people and what they're saying right so so Wilhelm published his book in 1886 you'll see at the bottom of the thing um but of course this wouldn't have this person wouldn't have known that the the uh the promises of abortion and that would have happened in 1842 so yeah what what were you going to say about that is it I'm just wondering like that's according to historians that's a really late date like 40 40 42 44 years after the fact then there's some discussion of abortions like like a lot of false memory can develop over over that amount of time and so I'm asking you is this quoting an earlier Source or are you telling me that the first mention of navu abortions doesn't appear until the mid 19 1880s no this is definitely not the first one if you go if we go to the later slides so I just wanted to pull this one out because like I like the description of of John C bennon he's a small villainous looking man the picture the picture that you've seen of John C bennon that's the only one that exists and so I thought that was a fun idea but also somebody's calling him the best friend of the Prophet which of course we talked in the last episode of the rise of John C Bennett and how close he was with Joseph and then this allegation of of of course uh abortions and how he can Pro how he promised women so I just like that quote because it paints it into context you're framing a character a characterization of John C but it's definitely not the first time Nao was discussed so maybe I should have put it in order of okay public that's fine pades is a character from Greek mythology as well I don't remember any of the details but that's where that is so okay all right yeah all right well let's go to the next slide okay so this is in the same book so um um so this is just he says in the opinion of Governor Ford this is Will hem will Governor Ford thought he was the greatest Scamp in the west and then I don't know if we need to read this whole thing but but Governor Ford is of the understood that that um that John C man had practiced abortion for the prophet and he treated professionally the the maladies uh maladies malades I don't know this word there gallanes Gallant GES of the high priesthood helped Joseph to organize the criminal masonry of the endowment in which he assumed the role of the Holy Ghost was his accomplice in the attempted murder of Governor bogs and who knows in how many other schemes of this kind and enjoyed the blessings of Isaac and Jacob and so he so he's saying that of willham will is saying can can I back up sure s right if I back up yeah yeah so it's it this is sort of I guess we can let's just test some of the things he's asserting here so Mike and Nemo and Julia say check or no check right so Bennett lived 18 months in navoo how does that sound check that's right on that's about right yeah organized the new Mormon Empire check yeah wrote the charters of the city check well well Joseph says that he did but he got them passed for sure yeah and procured their passage in the state legislature check drilled the navoo legion check okay so I just want to make the point that so far he's got six things that we all agree are true MH yeah right okay then we've got practice abortion for the prophet okay that's the that's the big question here and then he goes on treated professionally the maladies gallanes of the high priesthood does that mean he was a doctor the he was a doctor to the the respectable folk of the city said the is that but is that a check can we say check on that did he play the role of a pH okay I think he did and then helped Joseph to organize the criminal masonry of the endowment is that a check yeah cuz he introduced masonry to navu right okay yeah I think so in which he assumed the role of Holy Ghost I I wonder if that's like a role in the temple like there's Peter James and John and Lucifer in the early endowment maybe maybe maybe and then was his accomplice in the attempted murder of Governor bogs now I don't certainly uh John C Bennett thought that that was true MH thought that Joseph was an accomplice no thought that Joseph was trying to have g a bugs killed and Bennett panicked because he thought he was going to be an accessory to that is that my understanding yeah but isn't this claiming that that Bennett would have been an accomplice in the attempt right that's how that's how will is reading it yeah yeah but that's but but didn't we cover last time that Bennett was opposed or F felt that bgs's assassination was problematic well um so Bennett was of the opinion that Joseph had ordered um or Porter Rockwell to go and kill him and that he was there everyone knew that he was in the area during the time of the murder so so Bennett was trying to push that on Joseph and or por Rockwell but that's interesting that either Governor Ford or Willem will is thinking that that it was Bennett who was an accomplice so that's not a check right as far as we know no I was trying to say that Bennett might have thought himself an accomplice even reluctantly but because he was next to Joseph Smith but no that reading would suggest that he was knowingly and that's not a check and who knows uh in how many other schemes okay so I mean he's got several hits and there's one in question which is the abortion and at least one potential Miss which is you know Bennett's accomplice in the attempted assassination of box okay go ahead Julie I just I thought that was worth noting no that's good yeah yeah okay so yeah this is just another quote I just thought it was interesting that even even Governor Ford is is hearing these stories or at least according to wiam Well's book is he's hearing these stories of Joseph or of Bennett being his abortionist and again it's 40 years after the fact right so this one we just appreciate the phrase greatest Scamp in the west oh we bring that back such a great phrase all right sorry car okay let's keep going Julia okay so this one is this one is this is an affidavit that was published in the wasp and this is from Ham Smith and it was published on July 27th of 184 to so this is the earliest um source of John C Bennett being an abortionist um okay so yeah so he's he's trying to coers women into being with him and then he also states that he Bennett would be responsible for their sins if it should prove to be a sin if there were any and that he would give them the women medicine to produce abortions provided they should become pregnant one of these Witnesses a married woman that he that he attended upon in his professional capacity whilst she was stick stated that he was made that he made proposals to her of a similar nature he told her that he wished her husband was dead and that if he was dead he would marry her and clear and clear out with her he also begged her permission to give him her husband medicine to that effect he did try to give him medicine but he would not take it so he's trying to I guess poison this husband on interrogating her what she thought of such teaching she replied that she was sick at the time and had to be lifted in and out of her bed like a child so so this is ham saying that John C Bennett is saying that he's he's John C Bennett is um um coercing women or or eliciting this with women and then he's like oh yeah and it's totally fine and I'll take any blame for it if it's wrong and if you become pregnant I'll just like I'll just give you an abortion so if Julie if it's okay can I restate what I'm just hearing here that yeah according to ham Smith Joseph Smith's brother mhm he signed an affidavit published in 1842 this was while it was going on not 40 years later ham Smith is signing an affidavit that John C Bennett seduced women and taught them that it was okay to have abortions if no one knew about it that's that's immediate and a very close incredible Source unless he's lying right well my my question then is what part of this would be part of the attempts to discredit John C Bennett and did ham write this affid David or was it put in front of him to sign as someone to back up Joseph in the let's all get rid of John C Bennett's credibility campaign because if we're going to apply that sort of thinking to other things we have to obviously be consistent and apply that potential possibility that's I was going to say yeah well I was just kid in this particular one it does feel like what Nemo said that ham Smith is now giving an affidavit affidavit basically recapping the ones that the women gave in that trial that we had kind of mentioned earlier with there's multiple women who are being told by men including Joseph Smith's brother that they were taught by Joseph Smith that this was okay and so just as like if you want to apply like I would apply more skepticism to John C Bennett's expose I apply more skepticism here because ham Smith now is trying to get out ahead of the story um and basically to Poison the Well against anything John C Bennett says so there is motivation on his end to um definitely add in details as well and also to do the things that Joseph Smith is being accused of that's that thing we've talked about where it's like when someone accuses someone of adultery in the early days of the the church they immediately get accused of doing it themselves and so there's just a lot of stuff here that is it's hard to know exactly I don't think in the trial records they they mentioned John C Bennett saying that he would give them abortions but I'm not 100% sure on that okay all right but I mean for someone who's just trying to figure stuff out a believing Mormon's gonna trust ham Smith because he's Joseph's brother and died with Joseph and has no reason to doubt ham Smith would be lying right so a believing Mormon W should believe that John C Bennett performed abortions in navoo or at least taught that abortions were okay yeah except for in order to defend Joseph hyram May lie because obviously belie Mormon a believing Mormon is not going to think kyum would lie to defend Joseph but a believing Mormon is going to have to at some point come to conscience the fact that that these people were able to lie and did lie because there were other wealth documented facts of of them lying so so that's kind of the point is like in that environment then we have to conscience the idea that they could lie both for the case that John C Bennett was um performing abortions and against it because it completely what it completely acknowledges the existence of abortions and the knowledge of the existence of abortions during the navu time period yes yeah by people living in navu close to Jose right yeah yes so I think a lot of Mormons would grow up thinking abortions might have been a later invention and that there's no way that abortions were thought of and existed in navoo you know in in God's holy city right yeah and um if it's okay I could I mentioned this in our first episode on this stuff but uh Lindsey Hansen Park did a year of polygamy episode I think like two months ago and it covers abortion in Mormonism and it's really interesting um it's with Amanda Hendrick I think I'm getting the name right and they talk about how there's an ad in the navu neighbor in 18445 now to be fair this is after this happens they talk about all the different uses of Indian Indian herbs that's their wording you could say Native American herbs whatever and one of them is um a squa root which has been used U has been used throughout that entire time to cause abortions and that is blacked out in the ad and so um the point they were making and Lindsay Hansen Park was making this a lot is that these doctors at the time knew how to give um women abortions especially early in the pregnancy by using these herbs and these oils like castor oil um to induce um basically early labor which would effectively be like an induce an abortion so um one of the points they made was we sometimes um at least I did when I first read this stuff I thought and and and Julia has a slide on this that abortions then are like this the same way you think of it now where they you know have like a medical device that they pull out a kid with um but it when these women were trying to control their menstrual cycle they were using these these these herbs and these oils to make sure that their periods were regular and when they were not regular they could then um do that to to basically get it back on track which would basically be to IND induce an abortion almost be like um one of the ways they described it was almost like you take uh some of these things almost like a morning after pill today and this is not meant to be a discussion on the politics of abortion it's just to say it was thought of much differently then and um one of the things that um Lindsay had mentioned is there's a speech that Hebrew Kimble gives now he gives us in Utah but he talks about how when uh before he converted to the church so obviously this is before this time um that um abortions were as common as for wheat to grow and the point of saying that is is that people then thought of abortions differently and they also were not the you know they were done with a lot of herbs and stuff that women The Midwives knew how to do them the doctors knew how to do them and so if you want more details definitely check out um Lind Hansen Park's year of polygamy podcast on that but I think to me that gave a much different light on what we're about to cover because I always think of John C Bennett in abortions as like being on like a surgical table with all of that kind of stuff and in a lot in a lot of cases it wasn't and these doctors all knew how to induce abortions without that equipment and so in the case of John C Bennett or any of the doctors in Nauvoo they would have been aware of these different ways to um get women back on track on a on a a menstrual cycle if they were to accidentally get get pregnant in in a plg ofous marriage and that to me is a much different picture than the way I think we think of it in a modern lens of what would an abortion look like in navoo so I wanted to point that out now because I think we don't want to look at it that way because from a apologetic view you want to be like well how did John C Bennett have like this the secret medical ability and no one knew about it but on the other hand doctors and midwives knew about the these tactics back then and so someone like John C Bennett would be aware and that would also be beneficial to people who were involved in these secret polygamous marriages as well whether or not John Bennett did it on behalf of someone I think that's an important element to mention here all right Julia what were you gonna say oh h no those are all really good I can't remember my where my original thought was but those are really really good and uh I I do want to point out also and I think maybe I mention this later but um Lindsay Hansen Park also points out that Patty sessions who is a midwife she would have also been well versed in how to to um start or or give these herbs for to induce an abortion so like if you think of it as part of health care for these women in the 1800s who are having children it's it sort of changes your mindset on on whether abortion not to get into politics about but but why would that be okay okay okay yeah got it yeah that was a great comment all right yeah so you have you have ham Smiths the same year um we already we already covered this right right right right okay oh sorry um so this one is also uh this is this was also published in 1842 and the affidavits and certificates disproving the statements and affid affidavits contained in John CET letters so if you go to archive.org you can just type that long title in and it'll show you exactly what the affidavits look like um so so I I don't know how to say her name Zariah and godard's testimony so she gave a testimony on August 31st of 1842 she said Mrs Pride stated to me that Dr Bennett told her that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother at any stage of pregnancy and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties and that he had instruments for that purpose and is this Sarah Pratt this is this is uh this is no I'm not saying who said it she's referring to Mrs she's referring to s yeah yes sorry yeah so she's referring to Sarah Pratt right but this is the same woman that gave an affidavit about Sarah Pratt that Sarah came home and was very upset about and whose husband ran out the back door and she said oh I'm sorry I was forced into giving these affidavits so pinch assault on this one perhaps right yeah it might be and and and this is also one where you look at the Timeline this is from the end of August it would be so much more helpful if this was from May of 1842 when they were taking these affidavits on the disciplinary court because it wouldn't feel like you're doing this in response to what's been put out into the public eye not to say that that means it's not true it's just using that same kind of skeptical lens as you would use with um John C Bennett true still this is people this is the same year of of this Scandal and these These are people close to to the situation discussing direct people directly involved and again bringing up abortion a as you know as involved in this whole scheme that we know was was sexual I don't know um exploration in navoo by Joseph Smith and John C Bennett right so I mean this is going to be one of those episodes John where people cannot accuse us of just trying to steamroll John C Bennett and say he did all these bad terrible things like this is we are we are properly getting into the weed could she have been lying could she have not like yeah this is this is a real tricky one we're showing the receipts though I mean but we're also questioning the receipts cuz we're having to think I mean I yeah yeah I mean to Nemo's point this this is the same quote or this is is this the same woman who said that they ran out the back door right so yeah okay wait help me understand something I don't I don't understand if hyam Smith is signing an affidavit saying that that abortions were happening or that you know Ty John C benett to abortions if if Smith himself is saying that and then we've got another woman testifying that that uh that Sarah also talked about it why why are we not inclined to think that this is a legitimate thing that was happening because well I mean from my perspective Ham's and I'm not saying it isn't I'm just applying some of the skepticism that we've been applying earlier in that hyram was signing that at the same time that people were signing affidavit saying we're not practicing polygamy when clearly they were so we know people were signing false affidavits in order to protect Joseph Smith and to make John C Bennett look bad to try and put paint it all on him even though Joseph Smith was also doing some of the things that John C Bennett was accused of um and then on this one we've had an example of her giving an affidavit that she said she was forced into writing and she didn't want to that made Sarah Pratt look bad so then I'm asking the question well okay is this part of that or is it separate because you know just because she did that once this one could be true I'm just asking you know that that question there that would be why I'm bringing that up oh jul well then I'll point out that a lot of times when when we hear the cases of these already signed or already written statements that then they are forced to sign it's usually hyam giving those out and you'll see that even in Todd Compton's book where where or other cases where women where that happens it's it comes from hyam and even Zariah even said earlier that it was ham the gay for that so you could say well because he's the originator of this maybe he's the one that maybe he penned it maybe he didn't sign it but we don't know and then with um Zariah it seems like they were good friends because they because she did live with the goddards for a while while her husband was on a mission and so like it's hard to know because it's like she well she lied earlier said she didn't or you know signed it says she said you know the truth and then she end up lying and then so is she telling the truth here or not it's it's hard so H the theory is that hyam could have made up the abortion claim just to make John C Bennett look bad is that what we're saying I don't think he did I I don't think he did that's that's that's our working theory of why he would just make that up if he wasn't just speaking the truth is that what you said Nemo yeah as part of trying to discredit John C Bennett further and Mike what do you think yeah I'm just I keep like kind of trying to Circle this in my head because if if she really told Sarah Pratt that she was told by Haram you need to sign this in order to save the church then I would also argue that this statement in August saying John C Bennett was doing abortions is probably not honest because they're trying to frame John C Bennett as being the basically the ring leader of all this right and so to me that makes both of those statements seem like she's being coerced by the church should do it if that's what happened and that's why this is why this is so tricky because I'm I'm very skeptical of both sides on this stuff because there's so much mudslinging and there's so many people that are motivated to go one way or the other it's so hard to make sense of it do we know what the attitude was about abortions because we shouldn't assume that in 2024 abortions are generally viewed as horrific by you know 45% of the population let's just say do we know what the attitude was would would a associating John C Bennett with abortions have been a a defaming sort of problematic Association back in I don't 1842 NAU no but it could be an jul you go first Julia j I was gonna say so I don't know that would be a really interesting thing to study is the mindset of people in the 1840s I don't think that John C Bennett felt any sort of um because he's hearing all these things I don't think he felt any sort of shame or anything because even in his Expose and you can take this two ways even in his expose he never mentions abortion at all it's he doesn't seem to care he doesn't he doesn't defend himself at all and so you could see either he either he wants to keep it secret because he continues to practice um the spiritual wery after Mormonism so maybe he wants to keep that secret or that it was just such a common thing with his medical practice that he didn't feel the need to bring it up so I guess you could see it either way but personally I don't think he felt any that it was a political or whatever kind of thing a shameful thing I'm not looking at it as as defamatory particularly um it's more that they're saying this is how he managed to get away with trying to do spiritual wiery is that he had a method to prevent any unwanted pregnancies so it's part of them firming up the case that he was doing that rather than defaming him and saying that abortion is bad or whatever okay got yeah so um the episode with with Lindsey Hansen Park and Amanda Hendrick they talked about how at that time abortions were way more common because if say you were too poor and you got pregnant you would be in big trouble you know in in with those conditions or you know whatever the case might be or you know let's be like slavery if you get a slave pregnant they would give them things to to have an abortion and so it wasn't looked at the same and I believe they mentioned and I wish I had written this down um that at that time the church itself didn't really speak about life starting until I believe the baby was was born or something like that so the the whole idea of when Life Starts was different than in the first place so so that's all shifted since then and so as Nemo said it's not about was abortion necessarily thought of is is is as bad as it is today cuz that's not true it's it's about trying to get ahead of the idea that maybe Joseph Smith was was having these these wives on the side and maybe got them pregnant and been involved and I believe that would be the the motivation um to try to pin that on on John C Bennett so that you could keep it away from what would be later you know uh coined as plural marriage or polygamy okay all right that's great all right Julia uh let's go ahead and go to the next slide yes so this one's published in Wilhelm Wills Mormon portraits I which I think I said was published in oh yeah 1886 so this is uh s Prat she says you hear often that Joseph Smith had no polygamous Offspring the reason of this is very simple abortion was practiced on a large scale in NAU Dr John C Bennett The Evil Genius of Joseph of Joseph brought this Abomination into a secret into a scientific system he showed to my husband and to me the instruments with which he used to operate for Joseph there was a house in AVU right across the flat about a mile and a half from the town a kind of hospital they sent the women there when they showed signs of celestial consequences abortion was practiced regularly in this house okay so Sarah Pratt would have given this testimony when later so so he so it's not published until 86 so yeah this would have been later but would W would this will guy Wild guy had gone around kind of like I don't know hbit those affidavits what you just gone around getting affidavits from people who were around at the time that's a good question I don't I don't I don't know if that yeah I don't know about that all right so we don't know when it wouldn't take long to check but yeah I can check that do we know if Sarah Pratt ever denied you know this this account or this this testimony and we know I think I said earlier we know that she was excommunicated or left the church in Salt Lake I think it was 72 so a few years before this okay all right and this is the type of stuff Joseph wouldn't want Sarah Pratt talking about publicly right well yeah I guess if you're because she's Brigham Young because Joseph Smith would have been dead by then yeah so Brigham Young wouldn't have want her talking about this sort of stuff and relating it to Joseph right no no no because it makes very clear that that Joseph was practicing polygamy and the way he was getting away with it was John C Bennett That's what she's asserting which they wouldn't want yeah okay so I'm guessing historians are like that accounts way too late we can't really trust it right Mike is that what you're saying um I it's like I said it's these are these are ones that are tough for me because I don't know what to make of all that just because it would be nice if you had something more contemporaneous that said there was a house where abortions were performed but then again who's going to write down they had an abortion it that's where it gets really tricky and and I I kind of fall into that thing we talked about earlier that emo brought up where sometimes I'm like I don't if we're talking about whether or not the church is true or not to me this this is important but it's not helpful because this is a conversation that will immediately turn people off and I think because it's not solid enough to me I try not to dive into it because it it it matters but at the same time it's not really necessary if you're talking about that now if you're talking about this specific issue man it's hard to make sense of it because she was there at the time obviously she was someone who was you know involved with Joseph Smith and so it's hard to dismiss it and as Julia said John Bennett doesn't talk about it so it's not like she's re Rec recalling John C Bennett's expose here this is something she's talking about on her own will and this is also as Julie also point out these are you know we had that one interview where she says Joseph never said a bad thing then this interview with with this guy where she's you know kind of talking about things that would have ultimately I'm sure been part of the reason she was excommunicated for apostasy it's just so hard to know well this is the same s Pratt that Joseph shamed in the newspaper right right or in his speech so she also has a bias there to perhaps yeah yeah the fact that she also called it Evil Genius Like again there's like loaded language there it's not a very neutral telling I'll just say and this is probably a concluding point but for me it it's not necessary to assert that absolutely John Bennett was performing abortions for Joseph Smith that's not necessary all that's necessary is to say several people directly involved with Joseph number one that sexual that that sexual by a believing Mormon standard polygamy or sexual deviance was definitely happening adultery was happening Joseph Smith and John C Bennett were involved in it um they were denying it they were lying about it and that several people close to both John Bennett and Joseph Smith claimed that that abortions were happening either at the time in ham Smith's case and maybe others and then later by other people's testimonies I think what I just said is pretty much 100% accurate and doesn't overreach and and actually should be be pretty significant to people who are trying to understand navoo accurately now would any of you disagree with what I said and I'm I welcome your disagreement I thought that was good yeah like I no I the thing is this is something we've talked about in previous episodes to me I have a different lens of how I'm looking at this stuff than than other people than everyone else does everyone has their own lens and to me my lenses and this may sound like overly black and white but it's like is the church true is the church false because if the church is true but people were doing bad things that's that's something maybe you could still I could still be a part of and so to me this is important to to the character of these people and it's important to understanding what happened but my overall lens doesn't really you're saying it doesn't it it does this doesn't bear on the whether the Mormon church is true or false so it's not as interesting it's not as important to you yeah it's it's definitely interesting it's just not as important because if the church isn't true then whether or not they had abortions I don't need to be a part of this anyways and if the church is true then yeah you have to look at the say well how come is it are these abortion claims reliable and and and that's where um I fall into this idea and and where I if I want to have conversations with with people about this stuff and this is an area I'm just staying away from because it's so emotionally charged it's so hard to have this conversation if you read apologetic material they will go after Sarah Pratt as being a very biased and angry person and as Nemo said she's biased and she seems angry so what about H Smith what about H Smith what do they say about that apologists say about ham Smith asserting that abortions were happening yeah well that's why apologists can't step in on that because they can't say well he was lying to protect Joseph and make John C bennit bad because then they have to admit that ham Smith was lying soal I understand your technical rence Mike but I think even for people who are trying to determine if the church is true this idea of just knowing that abortions oh yeah the idea of abortions were in the air that there have been testimonies that abortions were occurring in and that people close to Joseph including his right-hand man were associated with it I think there's people for whom that information will would be important in their calculus for whether or not the Mormon church is what it claims to be Julie you going to say something about that no that's a really good these are really good thoughts okay I just want to take it back to that point I made about you know the whole Joseph Smith locking him in the room with a pistol it's like the pistol detail seems like a reach it seems like it's but the idea that Joseph took him to one side and said no you need to take the fall for this very plausible and I think what John's point out to there is is the middle ground between what is possibly being said with some hyperbole by angry people or being said to cover for some people or whatever ultimately it points to a it points to that these things were happening at that time the the ins and outs we we we're never going to be clear on but there was illicit sexual relations going on at that time take away and even the idea that there weren't there we can't prove Offspring for a lot of people just knowing that abortions were not only available but talked about allows them to sort of say in their minds well one of the possible reasons why there weren't Joseph Smith Offspring is because abortions have been associated with people close to Joseph and it doesn't have to be John C Bennett that was doing it doesn't have to be proved that it ever happened right yeah yeah yeah it's just like okay there's enough of a justification where I can understand that that it's plausible why Joseph wouldn't have had Offspring all right Julie let's keep going so we can finish on time yeah so there's there's a couple more so there's another one in Mormon portraits uh by willhem Will and in 1886 he just calls her Mrs H she said Mrs H says many little bodies of newborn children floated down the Mississippi holy well that's Grim right it is very grim and again this is late this is late I don't know who Mrs H is so there's a lot of unknowns here yeah need more on that one that one I'm not buying that one but I feel like again this is one of those things where it's like somebody would be like oh my goodness there's bodies floating down the river like that would be I would think documented by somebody even if they cuz remember again most of the church is not aware of polygamy so if you're not aware of polygamy and you're seeing bodies floating down the river you'd mention it I would think so not Mike doesn't like that one it's still pretty shocking and yeah it is oh it's shocking yeah yeah all right and the next one okay so this next one is this is an 1886 interview this is the same book so with Sarah Pratt um I'll go ahead and read it she says Bennett wanted me to return to him a book I had borrowed from him it was a so-called doctor book I had rapidly growing a rapidly growing little family and wanted to inform myself about certain matters in regard to babies Etc this explains my borrowing that book while giving Bennett his book I observed that he held something in the left sleeve of his coat Bennett smiled and said oh a little job for Joseph one of his women is in trouble a little fob oh a little fob for Joseph one of his women is in trouble saying this he took the thing out of his left sleeve it was a pretty long instrument of a kind I had never seen before it seemed to be of Steel and was crooked on one end I heard afterwards that the operation had been performed and that the wom was very sick and that Joseph was very much afraid that she might die but she recovered okay well that's pretty descriptive Mike's Mike's shaking his head again this is 40 years after the fact yeah and okay I'll just say this if if John C Bennett as we talked about in the first episode he's like literally said I joined the church to expose Joseph Smith this would be one amazing story to expose Joseph Smith that John C Bennett doesn't tell it so to me I'm like why would John C Bennett I mention that if he was walking around with an instrument in his pocket that he was you know doing these abortions for I I that's why I just these this is where the attitude towards abortion wasn't that bad at the time because it wouldn't necessarily indict him in any way John sorry yeah I think I think we made the point that that the let's just let people know these are assertions they're they're late that you could you could question the motivations of the people making the ass itions but but they're in the they're in the water and people should know about them M and they can decide for themselves if they're valid or not yeah these these sources these sources that I have pulled out are the only ones that I could find are I'll say this are the are all of the sources I could find concerning abortion so like I just tried to gather everything and if there are more that people know of please send them to me but so so there's just so little to go off of there's no we won't know for sure but all right let's go let's go to the next one is that right yeah I think this is the last one let's have Nemo read this one sure so uh Wilhelm Ville did you ever hear of abortion being practiced in N wait wait wait wait just read it from the top oh sorry yeah William law affidavit published 30th of March 1887 okay this is William law who was who was uh in in Joseph Smith's first presidency right right before Joseph died so a man who is known for his Integrity right yes yeah the novel Expositor is check out to have been accurate M and and he resigned from the church basically as a whistleblower protesting Joseph's polygamy and and we don't know of any significant lies that he told correct and this is willhelm will the same guy who did Mormon portraits it's it's the same guy but it's not the same book right book but he clearly got a statement from William La okay go ahead sorry go ahead Nemo so just to to Really hold on point there William La who was paying attention to the mechanics of polygamy at the time so will have had because he was exposing it y yeah yeahh okay yeah so um William Will did you ever hear of abortion being practiced in navu so that's him asking the question of William law William law says yes there was some talk about Joseph getting no issue from all the women he had intercourse with Dr Foster spoke to me about the fact but I don't remember what was told about abortion if I heard things of the kind I didn't believe it I didn't believe in them at that time Joseph was very free in his talk about his women he told me one day of a certain girl and remarked that she had given him more pleasure than any girl he had ever enjoyed I told him it was horrible to talk like this so that all checks out I think for me this is the one that that would be the strongest because he's being open about what he doesn't recall he's recalling that it was a topic of discussion he was an expert as it were because he' leared about all these things at the time and ultimately morally disagreed with them and published the navu Expositor accordingly um so I feel like this is the strongest one to make the point that you were making earlier John which is that it was happening at the time the ins and outs we don't know but it was going on I think that's fair to draw from this okay Mike well I would say anything new any any other new insights just that he's referencing Dr Foster instead of saying like John C Bennett so I think that's interesting that you have um another doctor from the navu legion who's who's saying or at least he's saying spoke about the fact that that Joseph Smith you know didn't have issues with the women I'm assuming they mean pregnancy so I think that's kind of interesting that we have now a secondary person of course it's not their first person account but I just think that's interesting it's a different doctor yeah isn't that funny talking about a pregnancy is an issue yeah Joseph getting no issue from all the women he had intercourse with Julia what do you think about referring to pregnancy as I wonder I wonder if issue also had different meanings because like when you say they have an issue of blood I don't know but yeah that's really funny and I mean I mean in the temple it says the women are cursed to have children right or something like that um I think it means like an incident like a scandal right yeah yeah and and I think that could be basically saying yeah you know you ask about abortion he's like yeah you know there was actually talk about the fact that Joseph Smith never actually had something he had to take care of publicly maybe that's what it means but either way it's you know it's an interesting quote it's from a different source which I like but William law is claiming that a Doctor Foster spoke to him about uh about abortions yeah and he says I didn't believe it at the time but then he was like maybe rethinking it okay I mean that this is a lot of a lot of points where it's really hard it's really I think it's pretty safe to say we can't just say abortions didn't happen and we can say there's probably at least a 50/50 chance that they did based on all these accounts including ham Smith at the time right well I think what this does then is it takes that other those other ones and corroborates them more firmly because despite their biases just because someone has a bias just because someone could have a reason to lie or to try and make Joseph look bad or to make John C Bennett look bad if there's someone who's a bit more out of it saying that that was being talked about as well then all of a sudden that lifts that up right so I think that one is an important one yeah let's Fon Broan on this uh yeah yeah um so Fon bro and no my knows my history she says Bennett had seduced innumerable women in Joseph's name quite without benefit of ceremony even worse he had promised abortion to those who became pregnant Zariah and Godard repeating the gossip of Sarah Pratt reported that Dr Bennett told her he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother at any stage of pregnancy and that he frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties and that he and that he had instruments for that purpose now this would be F Brody quoting the sources we just read right although although although in this next slide I think is I think it's this next one oh it's then it's the later one um so this is the overview I just wanted to look at all the testimonies at the same time so only two of these testimonies tie John C Bennett's abortions to Joseph Smith the rest of them just say oh he just he just practiced abortions like for his own benefit about getting with these women and so this is just a whole list and Thomas read them yeah okay so Thomas Ford and again a lot of these are from willham will so Thomas Ford in willham Will's Journal says Bennett practiced abortion for the profit hro Smith said that Bennett would give them medicine to produce abortions Zariah and Goddard said that Bennett had frequently destroyed and removed infants Sarah Pratt says Bennett would operate for Joseph and that she saw the tools he used to do the little jobs for Joseph and then Mrs H said that there were many little bodies floating down the Mississippi and then William L said he had heard that abortion was practiced in AVU but he didn't believe it at the time so so to me it looks like it it is really it's a good argument to say that there were abortions in navoo and it's a it's a not very it's not very strong argument to say that he performed them for Joseph like I don't know I guess what do you guys think I can get behind that yeah and here we have a a definitive quote from the right read it Julia so F bro says in her book there can be no doubt that Bennett was an abortionist I mean I I wouldn't want to I would want to disagree with f Brody right no yeah I I think it's very important that the that the viewers and the listeners hear us having these disagreements and discussions though um about our takes on these things because you know the one of the things people get accused of when they become critical of the church or they they apply critical analysis to church history is that oh you're just in another Echo chamber and you all just believe each other and you just assume the worst but actually I think we've modeled quite well that we don't all have the same view on these things and that that's important and you know I think it it oh go ahead John no no no keep going go ahead Mike I was just say I think it just shows you know from the whole time we've been doing these episodes we've been trying to say like when you have an apologetic answer you have to apply it elsewhere and in this case I think John said it earlier which is a really good point is a lot of times the church wants to say well John C Benet uh was an abortionist and also that there's no abortions going on in navu and it's like you can't have both ways and so that is where to me it's interesting because if you've got H room saying John C Bennett was an abortionist and Joseph Smith had him as the number two person in the church during that time it's really hard to then think that Joseph Smith wouldn't have that in his back pocket if you want to go that route and then if you want to say Well's lying then you got other issues especially when you know they're all involved in sexual Shenanigans I mean there's just no question right that's the thing yep yeah and I would just say one thing that I think we can all agree upon is that we were never taught as Mormons that abortion was happening in navu ever right I was never taught these things and yet the church will have known this since the start right so this is something the Mormon church has intentionally hid from its members which is suspicious right because if the church knew it was wrong and had evidence that it didn't happen then they would wouldn't be afraid to tell us that these rumors were out there but they weren't true and then they'd show the receipts to let us know it wasn't true right they never showing the receipts has never been their strong point no and and I would argue that I mean I'm just putting on my little hat here the the apologist would say well ham Smith never said that it happened he just said that John C Bennett told women he would do it so I suppose that would be the the exit ramp on that one but yeah I think that's this is where it just gets and this is where I think Nemo said it earlier when you have believing members who will immediately just reject all this stuff but it's like you then at some point have to accept that this is happening and then all of a sudden it becomes really difficult the further down you go to then say well Joseph Smith brought this guy all the way up to second in the in the the church you know and at the same time knows what he's doing because everyone else knows and then all of a sudden you're like but he had nothing to do with it and that's where you start to get that point of like well I don't really like Joseph Smith but I still you know he's a flawed man but then all then it just you start getting into those those those next layers of details it's like no this doesn't make sense that a person who speaks for God could have all these errors on one end and all these bad decisions and you know I think that's where the messiness just gets overwhelming to me well let's jump to the final slides just so that we can uh we can get Nemo out of here on time Nemo's got a run soon so Julia go ahead and hit these last couple slides so I I already talked about this it's just interesting to me that Bennett never mentions abortions in his expose he doesn't he doesn't say a word about it and so you say that he was trying to keep it secret because he was also practicing spiritual wiery after Mormonism so why would you want to expose that or you could think of it as this is just a very normal thing for a doctor to do is to pract is to do these abortions because it's healthcare for women and so that's that's all this slide was about it was just his silence on on this topic so he was he remains silent and then people have asked people have asked me if the purpose of having polygamy doctrinally was to raise up seed as the scriptures teach us then why would Joseph Smith have an abortionist and that's referring to the Book of Mormon quote that Bas covenants the point was it a Jacob that says there shouldn't be polygamy unless I the Lord want to raise up a righteous seed isn't that what the book and then DNC 132 says it as well exctly yeah exactly okay yeah so there shouldn't be abortions at all if if abortions are contradictory to the Justified Mormon Theology of Doctrine around PG and so therefore however Joseph Smith ended up having no children from his polygamous marriages however that came about it was wrong for him to not be having children in those polygamous marriages because the only reason he was meant to be doing it so yeah or the women him or the women or him or the women yeah but the women can say no and he can still Force his way in as DNC 132 teaches us so I I'll blame them less and so that for sure for sure blame them less wa so that just brings into question why Joseph Smith was involved in polygamy to begin with if he's not having children so that would cause hopefully cause a Believer to at least question why this is happening not that it's our intent to so doubt we just Prov the information and let people make their own decisions no yes very good yeah all right final slide Julia okay so while he may have exaggerated some things in his expose John C Bennett's accurate description of the Prophet trying to coers women into polygamy and his accurate listing of how many of many of Joseph Smith's wives cannot be overlooked John C Bennett's work should be studied not dismissed Mike you'd agree with that yeah 100% I think and that's a point we've been I think we've all been making is that this stuff has corroboration so you can't dismiss it uh but you also have to find where you've got outside information I think to to give it a little bit more and um and so from a critical standpoint you shouldn't just be like this guy's exposing Joseph Smith everything he says is great from an apologetic standpoint you also can't say this guy's a scoundrel and you can't trust anything so it's you can't say for sure that a that Joseph Smith had performed had abortions performed on the women he had sex with we can't we certainly cannot say that for sure no no yeah no which is fine yeah that's that's what that's what the data are yep all right well Julia this was fantastic thank you this is going to be an episode that that um people needed to to watch and and listen to what's uh what's part three about John Bennett just to get so I think I feel more excited about part three just because because Bennett leaving Nauvoo really triggers Joseph and he gets really scared and we'll see that with part three and how he reacts and how John C Bennett reacts there's just this sort of fight uh between the two of them so I'm really excited about part three but well what's it about title what's the title uh I don't know I can't remember what I had put on the is it about homosexuality and no oh yeah so yes homosexuality and then I can't remember the second part of it Ketchup no no ketchup yeah so uh we'll talk about the allegations that John C Bennett was probably the first homosexual in Mormonism and then and then his expose in leaving Mormonism and would it be bisexual technically not oh bisexual you're right you're right bisexual yep so B so same sex sexuality in in Mormon nov he's the first case of same seex sexuality in in Mormonism that we know of yeah that we know of okay all right well great work uh thanks Julia thanks Mike and Nemo it's so great to have you please subscribe to Nemo the Mormon podcast please subscribe to uh uh Mormon stories podcast on YouTube and Facebook and Tik Tok and Instagram and please know that this entire LDS discussion series is available on Spotify on uh on Apple podcasts and it's also there's a playlist where you could watch them in order which is what we recommend on the Mormon stories podcast YouTube channel and Mike this is all because of the great work that you've done at ldsd discussions. medom so Mike thanks for for being the the grandfather of this entire series well thank you to Julia because these are her her episodes and like I said I've learned a lot doing it which has been really fun because I I didn't look too much into him so thank you to Julia for putting it all together yeah and thanks Mike for making all this possible all right well you guys are the the best and uh and uh we can't wait can't wait for part three all right bye thanks to everyone who join us today on morm Stories podcast please uh if you want to see this type of content continue we pay uh the parties involved so uh please donate to uh so many people say they love the LDS discussion series that it's been transformative for them if that's true and if you're in the position to do so please go to Mormon stories.org click on the Donate button become a monthly donor and we we'll try and continue the series for as long as we're able um and and as long as we've got content that honors the spirit and the scholarship and the accuracy and the thoughtfulness that Mike has uh uh initiated for us anyway take care be kind to each other be good to each other we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon stories and on LDS discussions take care everybody