Communication With the Spirit World

Heber C. Kimball

Bless my soul, look at the unbelieving world, that is a great many of them, they now believe in spiritual knockings, spiritual communications, and spiritual rappings, and they will ask the same spirit for this, and for that; to know this, that, and the other; and, “Won’t you cause that table to kick up its legs, and that chair to dance, and cause a knocking here, and a knocking there?” They believe all this, still they do not believe that God can communicate. And at the same time those that they communicate with are corrupt spirits, and they might know it, and still they say they can speak from the heavens, and communicate this, that, and the other, and tell them where their friends are. If wicked spirits can do this, I want to know, on the same principle, if the righteous have not power to communicate to the children of men? And has not God power to do it? (Journal of Discourses, 2:222-223)

Parley P. Pratt

Who communicated with Jesus and his disciples on the holy mount? Moses and Elias, from the invisible world. Who bestowed upon the Apostles the commission to preach the Gospel to every creature in all the world? He that had passed the vale of death, and had dwelt in the spirit world, yea, he that had ascended far on high above the realms of death, and far beyond all the principalities and powers of the spirit world, and had entered, and been crowned, in the mansions of immortal flesh.

Who communicated with the beloved disciple on the Isle of Patmos, and revealed those sublime truths contained in his prophetic book? He that liveth and was dead, through his angel, who declared to John--Behold, I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the Prophets, that have the testimony of Jesus. Who communicated with our great modern Prophet, and revealed through him as a medium, the ancient history of a hemisphere, and the records of the ancient dead? Moroni, who had lived upon the earth fourteen hundred years before. Who ordained Joseph the Prophet, and his fellow-servant, to the preparatory Priesthood, to baptize for remission of sins? John the Baptist, who had been beheaded! Who ordained our first founders to the Apostleship, to hold the keys of the kingdom of God, in these the times of restoration? Peter, James, and John, from the eternal world. Who instructed him in the mysteries of the kingdom, and in all things pertaining to Priesthood, law, philosophy, sacred architecture, ordinances, sealings, anointings, baptisms for the dead, and in the mysteries of the first, second, and third heavens, many of which are unlawful to utter? Angels and spirits from the eternal worlds. Who revealed to him the plan of redemption, and of exaltation for the dead who had died without the Gospel? and the keys and preparations necessary for holy and perpetual converse with Jesus Christ, and with the spirits of just men made perfect, and with the general assembly and Church of the first-born, in the holy of holies? Those from the dead! Again--How do the Saints expect the necessary information by which to complete the ministrations for the salvation and exaltation of their friends who have died? By one holding the keys of the oracles of God, as a medium through which the living can hear from the dead. Shall we, then, deny the principle, the philosophy, the fact of communication between worlds? No! verily no! (Journal of Discourses, 2:44)