Alvin Smith

Occurrences: none

See: Ariel, Ariel Disclosure, Dispensationalism, Joseph Smith, Jr.

Summary: (1798–1823) Alvin Smith was the oldest brother of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-Day Saint (LDS / Mormon) religious movement. During a public discourse given on November 4, 2007, (later deemed the “Ariel Disclosure”) Archie D. Wood, Sr. (aka Azrael) claimed that Alvin Smith was the mortal embodiment of the Arch-Angel Ariel, and the foreordained leader of the fifth dispensation on this earth. He also provided an alternate history behind the unexpected death of Alvin, which took place when he was twenty-five years old.

While documentation shows that Alvin died of mercury poisoning from a popular remedy called calomel, Wood claimed Alvin was deliberately poisoned to death by his father, Joseph Smith Sr. According to Wood, Alvin’s illness was initially caused by a poisonous elixir administered by Alvin’s father, who had convinced Alvin it would assist him in seeing treasures in the earth (which would thereby help the family earn more with their money-digging schemes). Unaware of his father’s intent and desperately wanting to please him, Alvin drank the mixture. Fearing the poison wasn’t working, Joseph Sr. purposefully over-administered the mercury chloride (calomel) under the guise of trying to heal Alvin of his stomach pain.

According to Wood, Smith’s underlying motive for killing Alvin was due to a long held resentment towards Alvin because Alvin was not his biological son, but rather, was conceived as a result of an affair between Lucy Mack Smith and a man named Silas Toliver (sp?). When Smith Sr. learned that Alvin had been communing with an angel, he felt insulted that his bastard son was the one favored by God and had the ability to communicate with spirits.

Alvin died in 1823 at the age of twenty-five. Joseph Jr. was seventeen years old. It was around the time of Alvin’s death that Joseph Smith Jr. began telling stories of seeing an angel. According to Wood, Alvin’s accounts of communing with divine beings gave the Smith’s an idea which became the seed of a what is now recognized as the Latter-Day Saint movement, and referred to in the Song of God as the “house of Joseph”.

While Alvin is never mentioned in the Song of God, his younger brother Joseph is spoken of in the 1st Endowment (1:2:26-29; 1:3:45-48).

For more detailed information pertinent to this topic, see: Ariel Disclosure.

Notes/References:

And throughout each succeeding dispensation did Jehovah-Yahweh twist and bend the words of God whereby he might establish a great confusion while yet our Shaemdiel continued to seek out the children of God, to fill them with all manner of weariness.

Evensomuch that in the days of Ariel did the darkness some greater hold take, for the heart of Joseph was filled with pride, and had it not been by some greater effort, even Joseph would have fallen away into Jehovah’s keeping forever.

Yet did Joseph, in the last days of his sojourn, remember well the days of his instruction and by some noble effort plant deep in the heart of all his following the seed that leads to exaltation.

Thus, Most Holy Father, did the dispensations of our design go from greater to lesser; for that which Michael established in strength did even Joseph barely achieve through weariness; for evil did multiply and grow more heavy upon the children of God, evensomuch that many did fall away, being exhausted in both mind and spirit.

1st Endowment 2:26-29

Still, Most Holy Father, do I rightly know this need for opposition; for without the darkness, how would we know the light? Without evil, how could we discern the good? For in the comparing of one thing against another do we perceive most clearly those things which come from God.

Yet over this one thing do I greatly puzzle, for in the presumptions of Joseph was Joseph greatly tempted because of the delusions of this life, evensomuch that so great a prince as he was almost turned aside forever.

Tell me, therefore, how this could be, that evil should be so great as to cause this Joseph to stumble upon the way.”

Such did I speak unto The One concerning the evils which pressed hard against us in the world beyond all beginnings; and when I was concluded, the Light within the light grew strangely still, and all Heaven did anxiously await the coming of the word. (Gnosis to be revealed)

1st Endowment 3:45-48

Alu-Shali

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