American Mystic

The Contemplative Spirituality of Joseph Smith

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. (James 1:5)

This verse in James is well known to have inspired Joseph Smith’s 1820 prayer for wisdom. What we don’t often understand, however, is that that prayer was also his baptism into the deep water of contemplative spirituality and his confirmation as a mystic. We often hear Joseph Smith described as a prophet, seer, and revelator, but rarely, if ever, do we hear him described as a mystic.

A mystic is an individual who seeks, through contemplation and self-surrender, a direct experience or union with God’s own being. Contemplation, in turn, is a theological term of art referring to a profound form of prayer or meditation focused on deep, direct, and experiential connection with the Divine.

Contemplative prayer stands in contrast to discursive meditation (where the mind actively reasons about religious concepts). Although discursive reasoning can at times be spiritually fruitful, contemplation aims to transcend ordinary thought and sensory perception by quieting the mental faculties and becoming intimately receptive to the Holy Spirit—the personage of loving wisdom.

A contemplative prayer practice can feel foreign in our culture of hyperactivity. Joseph Smith frankly affirms, however, the superior value of contemplative thought over discursive religion by declaring, “The only way to obtain truth and wisdom, is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer and obtain divine teaching.”¹ Joseph additionally stated, “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.”