Thirty-Eight (1843)Hyrum returned to the earth once again as a mortal; under his new moniker, he
translated the sealed portion of the gold plates and published the other books
prophesied within the pages of the Book of Mormon^29 which would come forth
subsequent to the revelation of the Book of Mormon in the latter times. He has also been
responsible for the publication of this biography. With the capacity to recall—often with
great effort—the experiences of his life with Joseph, this author has had the unique
ability to help give a much more intimate and detailed account of Joseph’s life. This is
especially true with the aid of the resurrected Joseph giving him the advice and
intelligence regarding his life.
The Reality of Reincarnation
The author of this book claims that he is the reincarnated Hyrum Smith. This
declaration alone will greatly disturb the LDS/Mormon faithful—but it shouldn’t. The
possibility of reincarnation is as valid a claim as many other LDS/Mormon beliefs that the
faith claims to be true: i.e., baptism for the dead, spirit prison, families sealed together forever,
etc.^30 All Mormons believe that they lived before this world was, in a pre-mortal state. The
mere fact that they believe they lived once before substantiates the idea of reincarnation, for
being born as a mortal upon this earth is a re-embodiment. The erroneous part of modern
LDS/Mormon belief is that they believe that they existed, not as a living soul that their own
scriptures define as a spirit and body connected together,^31 but as a spirit only.
They believe that an eternal Father and Mother created their “spirit body” and that
with this “spirit body,” they lived with their eternal parents. This understanding falls apart
with erroneous disaster when they are asked to consider what their “spirit body” looks like.
The numerous stories of after-death “sightings” assert that LDS/Mormons and all others,
alike, fully claim to a mortal recognition of these spirits; that these appearances mimicked
the same appearance their mortal body had as it was last remembered by the one having
such a sighting.
In every case of such sightings, it is instructive to note that the person “seen” was
constructed in appearance according to the imagination of the one having the sighting—one
may “see” (remember) a spirit as old while another may see (remember) the same spirit as a
youth. Generally though, those who died old are seen as old; babies are seen as babies; all
are remembered as they were known—some not very appealing, some shorter than one
would like, some freckled, some not-so-pleasing to the eye—according to what they
inherited from the DNA patterns of their mortal parents. So, when they consider the
implication that they were created in the image of their eternal parents, then logic supplants
the idea that their pre-mortal “spirit body” looks like their mortal body (therefore their
mortal parents)—instead, it must look like how their eternal parents first created it.
Joseph taught reincarnation throughout his ministry, sometimes explaining how
close he felt to the Book of Mormon prophets without revealing that he actually was the one
responsible for what was written upon the plates when he lived as Mormon.^32 The LDS
Temple Endowment teaches, without doubt or question, that “Michael,” a member of the
Godhead, was raised up, or reincarnated, from a physical pre-mortal state to become the
“man Adam and the woman Eve.”^33 After being the first woman to see the presentation of
the temple endowment play, Eliza R. Snow told people that “Michael was a celestial,
resurrected being, of another world.”^34