Editing First Vision (section)

===Background===
{{Main|Early life of Joseph Smith}}
Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in [[Vermont]], and in 1816, his family moved to a farm just outside the [[Palmyra (town), New York|town of Palmyra]], New York.{{sfnp|Shipps|1985|p=4}} In the first several decades of American society in the 1800s, there was a proliferation of religious options.<ref>Hatch, Nathan O. Democratization of American Christianity. Yale University Press, 1991. e-book location 2307 of 7374</ref>  During the [[Second Great Awakening]], revivals occurred in many communities in the [[northeastern United States]]. The religious environment in the region where the Smith family lived was so intense it is referred to today as the [[burned-over district]].<ref name="Shipps 1985 7">{{Harvnb|Shipps|1985|p=7}}</ref> In the Palmyra area itself, large multi-denominational revivals occurred in 1816–17 and 1824–25.{{sfnp|Bushman|2005|pp=36, 46}}<ref>{{harvp|Vogel|2004|pp=26, 58–60}}: "Indeed, it was the revival of 1824–25, his family's conversion, and his mother's pressure that caused [Smith] so much pain and suffering rather than the revival of 1817 or the one he 'remembered' for 1820." Bushman does not argue for an 1820 revival in Palmyra, stating only that the "great revival of 1816 and 1817, which nearly doubled the number of Palmyra Presbyterians, was in progress when the Smiths arrived." (36)</ref>  Within eight miles of the Smith family farm, at least four [[Methodist]], three [[Presbyterian]], two [[Baptist]], and several [[Quaker]] groups held regular meetings.<ref>[https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/effusions-enthusiastic-brain-joseph-smiths-first-vision-and-limits-experiential-religion Talmage, Jeremy ''Effusions of an Enthusiastic Brain: Joseph Smith's First Vision and the Limits of Experiential Religion'' BYU Studies Quarterly 59, no. 1 (2020) pg. 29-30]</ref>  Despite the large number of congregations however, only about 11% of Palmyra residents belonged to any organized religion in 1820, which was in line with the national average.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/membership-of-certain-of-joseph-smiths-family-in-the-western-presbyterian-church-of-palmyra/|title=Membership of Certain of Joseph Smith's Family in the Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra|date=August 6, 2019|website=byustudies.byu.edu}}</ref>

Besides organized religion, the Smith family was exposed to a number of other belief systems.{{sfnp|Shipps|1985|p=6}} A large ill-defined group of early Americans have been lumped into the term "seekers".  This group held a heterogeneous set of beliefs; including that religion with creeds were unnecessary and the apostolic church no longer was on the earth.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://signaturebookslibrary.org/religious-seekers-01/|title=Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism – 01 &#124;}}</ref> [[Cunning Folk Traditions and the Latter Day Saint Movement|Cunning folk traditions or folk magic]] was also prevalent in Palmyra; intertwined and considered congruous with Christianity.<ref name="Shipps 1985 7"/> [[Deism#Deism in the United States|Deism]], the belief that God exists but does not intervene in earth, also had a growing hold in American culture with the publication of [[Thomas Paine]]'s popular book ''[[The Age of Reason]]''.{{sfnp|Shipps|1985|p=8}}

[[File:Joseph Smith family farm in Manchester.jpg|left|thumb|[[George Edward Anderson]]'s photograph of the [[Smith Family Farm]] in [[Manchester, New York]], c. 1907. (LDS Archives)]]
[[Richard Bushman]] has called the spiritual tradition of the Smith family "a religious melee."{{sfnp|Bushman|2005|pp=25–27}} Like many other Americans living on the frontier at the beginning of the 19th century, Smith and his family believed in visions, dreams, and other [[Christian mysticism|communications with God]].{{sfnp|Quinn|1998}} In 1811, Smith's maternal grandfather, [[Solomon Mack]], described a series of visions and voices from God that resulted in his conversion to Christianity at the age of seventy-six.<ref>"About midnight I saw a light about a foot from my face as bright as fire; the doors were all shut and no one stirring in the house. I thought by this that I had but a few moments to live, and oh what distress I was in .... Another night soon after, I saw another light as bright as the first, at a small distance from my face, and I thought I had but a few moments to live. And not sleeping nights and reading, all day I was in misery; well you may think I was in distress, soul and body. At another time in the dead of the night I was called by my Christian name; I arise up to answer to my name. The doors all being shut and the house still, I thought the Lord called, and I had but a moment to live." {{Harv|Mack|1811|p=25}}</ref>

Joseph Smith's mother, [[Lucy Mack Smith]], had a "believers baptism" early in her marriage, but did not formally join to any denomination early in her marriage.<ref name="Vogel 2004 7">{{Harv|Vogel|2004|p=7}}</ref>  [[Joseph Smith Sr.]] was a combination of deist and seeker, who was skeptical of organized religion, but not irreligious.<ref>Shipps writes, "[Smith Senior's] father had given him a copy of Thomas Paine's ''Age of Reason'', that he seems to have read with great interest."{{Harvnb|Shipps|1985|p=8}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Bushman|2005|pp=25–27}}: "If there was a personal motive for Joseph Smith Jr.'s revelations, it was to satisfy his family's religious want and, above all, to meet the need of his oft-defeated, unmoored father."</ref>  Before Smith was born, Lucy went to a grove near her home in [[Vermont]] and prayed about her husband's repudiation of evangelical religion.{{sfnp|Smith|1853|p=54}}{{sfnp|Bushman|2005|p=26}} That night she said she had a dream which she interpreted as a [[prophecy]] that Joseph Sr. would later accept the "pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God."{{sfnp|Smith|1853|pp=55–56}}{{sfnp|Quinn|1998}} She also stated that Smith Sr. had a number of dreams or visions between 1811 and 1819,<ref>{{harvp|Smith|1853|pp=56–59, 70–74}}. Smith Sr.'s first vision was around 1811 (id. at 56–57), and his "seventh and last vision" was in 1819 (''id.'' at 73–74). {{harvp|Bushman|2005|p=36}}: "The best barometer of the household's religious climate are seven dreams Joseph Sr. had in the years before and after his son's first vision. Lucy wrote down five of them, calling them visions. Since no other member of the family gave an account of the dreams or even referred to them, and Lucy recorded them thirty years later, there is no way of testing the accuracy of her memory."</ref> the first of which occurring when his mind was "much excited upon the subject of religion."{{sfnp|Smith|1853|pp=56–57}} The first of Joseph Sr.'s visions confirmed to him the correctness of his refusal to join any organized religious group.<ref>{{harvp|Smith|1853|pp=57–58}}. Joseph Smith Sr.'s second vision as reported by Lucy Mack Smith exhibits many similarities to the [[tree of life vision]] which Joseph Smith Jr. would later dictate as part of the [[Book of Mormon]] {{Harv|Bushman|2005|p=36}}.</ref>  Smith's father additionally joined the local masonic lodge, with Smith's older brother Hyrum sometime shortly after arriving in Palmyra.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://signaturebookslibrary.org/mormons-and-freemasonry/|title=Freemasonry and Mormons &#124;}}</ref>

Smith's older brother Alvin did not join any organized religion.  Lucy said that after Alvin died in late 1823, she sought comfort in religion, and formally joined the Presbyterian church in either 1824 or 1825 along with her children Hyrum, Samuel and Sophronia.<ref name="Vogel 2004 7"/><ref>As discussed below, the date of Lucy's conversion has been contested by some LDS Church scholars as it contradicts Smith's 1838 First Vision account. See {{Harvtxt|Bushman|2005}} footnote 30</ref>