Vermont neighbors of the Smith family have said that Joseph Sr. expressed a belief in seer stones before the family moved to New York. In an open letter to Joseph Smith printed in a newspaper of the day, Vermont neighbors wrote, “you was old enough when you left here to remember a great many things about him and how he used to tell about your being born with a veil over your face, and that he intended to procure a stone for you to see all over the world with (Quinn 42).”
Joseph Smith’s sandy-colored seer stone, passed from the window Emma to descendants of her second husband Lewis Bidamon, Wilford C. Wood Museum.
From a variety of sources both friendly and unfriendly to Joseph Jr. it can be gleaned that he acquired his seeing stones on three different occasions. The first stone he dug up himself after using a neighbor’s stone to see the location. The second stone was a gift and the third stone was found during a dig on a neighbor’s property (Quinn 42).
Brigham Young reported to the counsel of the twelve apostles that Joseph Smith Jr. had obtained his very first seer stone by looking through another’s stone and seeing the exact location. He went to that location, dug, and found the stone right away in an iron kettle 25 feet underground (Quinn 43).
As we can see from the pictures above, the seer stones Joseph used contain holes and are smoothed over. In the tradition of European Pagan, and faery (fairy) magick, a holey stone -one that has been smoothed over by time and water - has long been sought as an amulet of the Goddess and in the faery faith is a great treasure. You must find your stone yourself by asking spirits to reveal it to you (Katlyn 88).
In the process of attaining this stone you may also be given a treasure or gift of another sort such as flowers, honey, colorful stones, or even treasure of monies. These magick stones are a great blessing. By holding this magick stone to your eye you are granted with the power of vision (Katlyn 88). It seems an interesting similarity to how Joseph and his father went about attaining stones of a similar quality and also how they used them.
