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	Salamander Letter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Salamander Letter presented a view of LDS founder Joseph Smith's life that stood sharply at odds with the commonly accepted version of the early progression of the church Smith established.
		In the letter, Harris presented a version of the recovery of the golden plates which contrasted greatly with the "orthodox" version of events as related by the LDS church, and which confirmed some controversial aspects of Smith's life (such as Smith's alleged "treasure digging" by magical means).
		The Salamander letter was used as support research which variously came from devout Mormons, and from longtime critics of the LDS church.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Salamander_Letter (1493 words)

	Excerpt ~ Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
		More importantly, the letter described an occult means of finding buried treasure and portrayed Smith as a treasure digger, an image the church had tried to deny ever since the young preacher proclaimed himself a prophet and his parlor-full of followers became a church.
		Durham's letter, a copy of the salamander letter, and a cover letter from Metcalfe, who had been assigned to the project, were forwarded to Walker's and Jessee's supervisor, Leonard Arrington.
		The agreement lent credence to the salamander letter and to the rumors of the Stowell letter, Christensen explained to Alan Smith.
	www.signaturebooks.com /excerpts/salamand.htm (9213 words)

	Linda Sillitoe -“Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
		Christensen had purchased from Hofmann the so-called "Salamander Letter" of Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps, which had been unveiled in a circus-like meeting of the Mormon History Association in May 1985.
		The "Salamander Letter" appeared to be a connecting link between the victims in this scenario for the bombings.
		He is the co-author of Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders, co-founder of Sunstone magazine, co-editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and is a contributing author to Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience: A Mormon/Humanist Dialogue.
	www.lds-mormon.com /silltoe.shtml (3398 words)

	Salamander Letter and Mark Hofmann
		Apparently contradicting the official LDS account about the appearance of the Angel Moroni, the letter from Harris claimed that a spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander, and suggested that folk magic and treasure hunting was involved in Joseph's acquisition of the golden plates, resonating strongly with popular anti-LDS allegations about Joseph Smith.
		Interestingly, the letter could be interpreted in terms of American frontier culture and figurative ways of expression to still accord with the LDS view, but it was also fodder for the enemies of the Church who claimed that it disproved the whole Book of Mormon.
		The Salamander Letter incident was a difficult and tragic episode in Church history, one that warns us of the lengths that enemies of Christ and of His Church will go to in their desire to destroy.
	www.lightplanet.com /mormons/response/qa/salamander.htm (2245 words)

	[No title]
		The salamander originates from a fire of myrtle wood which has been kept burning for seven years steadily by means of magic arts.
		Because of the salamander letter's potentially controversial impact, Ron Walker and Dean Jessee were still pressing for provenance and authentication before publishing anything.
		All the handwriting samples appeared to be consistent with that on the letter.
	www.lycos.com /info/salamander.html (514 words)

	[No title]
		Salamander operated the mine where the Complainant last worked until July 1901 and provided the Complainant with benefits coverage until that time.
		The President of Salamander is the wife of the President of Stonehouse.
		When Stonehouse began operating the mine previously operated by Salamander, it used Salamander's name for at least a year thereafter, it assumed Salamander's equipment obligations, used its assets, hired the Employees who had worked at the mine for Salamander, and assumed the obligation to provide benefits coverage to the Complainant.
	www.umwafunds.org /RODS_DATA/81rods/81-303.DOC (773 words)

	Mark Hofmann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Supposedly written by Thomas Bullock, Hofmann claimed to have acquired the letter along with the Joseph III blessing, which presented Smith's young son, Joseph Smith III as the most legitimate leader for the LDS church, not Brigham Young, who was accepted as the leader by the majority of Smith's followers after Smith's murder.
		Other purported letters sold in excess of $10,000 include a holograph referring to Joseph Smith treasure-seeking for silver (which some would consider embarrassing to the church) and the supposed 1830 contract between Smith and printer Egbert Bratt Grandin for the first edition of the Book of Mormon.
		Containing elements of early anti-Mormon rumors, the Salamander Letter depicts Joseph Smith as a practitioner of folk magic, and relates an account of Smith's receiving the Golden Plates that is entirely different from the orthodox version.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Mark_Hofmann (1883 words)

	A Great Salt Lake City Forged Cover
		The ink of the postmark has a somewhat grayish cast to it and the individual letters of the impression are slightly broken.
		However, a non-standard ink formulation could be expected on such a usage, and the breaking up of the individual letters is not uncommon on covers postmarked during the colder months.
		His handwriting frequently shows letters drawn individually rather than connected to adjoining letters and has a slant approaching the vertical.
	www.rfrajola.com /opinions/gslc.htm (1892 words)

	Texas Endangered Species Policy, Part II: Salamander Wars
		The Jollyville Plateau Salamander has a slightly larger distribution in northwestern Travis Co. and adjacent parts of southern Williamson Co. Both species depend on clean water and this makes them vulnerable to spills of toxic substances and polluted run-off from suburban lawns and roadways.
		(25) Despite this opinion, the Barton Springs Salamander Conservation Team was terminated in March 1997 when a federal court discovered the superficial nature of the Conservation Agreement and found it deficient as a means to protect the salamander from extinction.
		February 14, 1995 letter from George W. Bush, Governor of the State of Texas to Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior.
	www.txpeer.org /Bush/Salamander_Wars.html (2786 words)

	Confessions of a White Salamander - Chapter 1
		The reason, of course, was that he never had such a collection.) In the Salamander letter the white salamander took delight in tricking Joseph Smith: "...the spirit says I tricked you again..." From his own confession, it appears that Mark Hofmann also derived pleasure in tricking the Mormon prophets.
		The handwriting style of the letter was copied basically from the available Martin Harris signature, the samples of letters and styles from that era, and the common style and standards that were employed at that time.
		The beginning of the letter, 'I received your letter today and hasten to respond' was from words he had seen in actual letters from that era and place; therefore he was sure the time sequence was proper.
	www.utlm.org /onlinebooks/trackingconfessions1.htm (7557 words)

	The Seattle Times: Local News: Western lizard species subject of lawsuit
		He said the Siskiyou Mountains salamander was one of hundreds of rare species protected from habitat loss from logging under the Northwest Forest Plan until the Bush administration replaced the regulation with a less-restrictive test.
		U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Jewett said the agency told the petitioners in a July 19 letter that it did not have the resources to evaluate another species for threatened or endangered status.
		The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is found in the Applegate River drainage in Oregon and the Klamath River drainage in California.
	seattletimes.nwsource.com /html/localnews/2002450347_salamander24m.html (347 words)

	CDR Salamander: Fisking Ahmadinejad (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Reading the article that says it was leaked some of the letter Ahmadinejad sent to President Bush....I think I saw some hidden messages from Iran....
		In another part of the letter, Mr Ahmadinejad suggests Washington has concealed elements of the truth about the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Reuters reports.
		The president ends the letter by appealing to Mr Bush to return to religion.
	cdrsalamander.blogspot.com /2006/05/fisking-ahmadinejad.html (423 words)

	Meet Mark Hofmann
		One such document which happened to become public knowledge was the so-called "Salamander Letter," ostensibly written by Martin Harris to W. Phelps.
		As it turns out, the Salamander Letter actually was a forgery, of course, which boosted the Tanners' reputation for honesty, since they refused to tout a document they couldn't authenticate, no matter how damning to the LDS Church.
		This was a purported letter from Joseph Smith to Josiah Stowell in which he described some of the occult practices he used in pursuit of money-digging.
	www.mormoninformation.com /hofmann.htm (2738 words)

	Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders (Mark Hofmann)
		Drawing from thousands of pages of police reports, court documents, interviews, letters, and diaries, Sillitoe's and Roberts's narrative cuts through the complexities of this famous crime investigation to deliver a gripping, Capote-esque tale.
		allowing the reader fleeting glimpses of the infamous white salamander as it ducks in and out of its fabricator's head.
		What was the "salamander letter" and why were so many people determined to possess—and to conceal—it?
	www.signaturebooks.com /salamand.htm (505 words)

	Mark Hofmann Talks, Murders and Forgeries in Utah, Salt Lake City Messenger, Mormon History, Jerald and SandraTanner, ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The purported letter was indeed acquired by the church.
		After the Salamander letter was published in its entirety by the Mormon Church, the news media widely disseminated the story that Joseph Smith was involved in the occult.
		The Salamander letter, for example, changes the story of the Angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith to that of a cantankerous and tricky "old spirit" who transforms himself from a white salamander and strikes Joseph Smith.
	www.xmission.com /~country/reason/hof1.htm (16630 words)

	LDSLF: Reviewing the FARMS Review: Midgley on Palmer
		In this notorious letter, which eventually turned out to be one of Mark Hofmann’s clever forgeries, Harris claimed that Joseph Smith, when he visited the place where the plates were hidden, was confronted by a tricky guarding spirit—a white salamander changeling—instead of a heavenly messenger.
		More generally, the salamander letter was not the only, or even the most important, piece of evidence connecting early Mormonism with New England folklore.
		Yet Midgley’s dismissal of the Hoffmann material on the basis of the fake salamander letter’s apparent role in inititating research is inadmissable; Palmer has additional arguments in favor of the parallel, which have not been adequately addressed.
	ldsliberationfront.net /?p=173 (3104 words)

	deseretnews.com \| Tales of Hofmann: Forgeries, deceit continue to intrigue 20 years later (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The letter recounted how the church prophet had encountered a white salamander — that transformed itself into a spirit — guarding the gold plates.
		This second letter, known informally as "the Salamander Letter," had called into question the origins of the church, because no mention of anything that fantastical had ever appeared in church writings.
		A Betsy Ross letter now owned by Al Rust is one of Hofmann's sloppier efforts — he found a letter from another Betsy, added the "Ross" and changed the date.
	deseretnews.com /dn/view/0,1249,635153542,00.html (3622 words)

	Todelliset McLellinin dokumentit löydetty 1. presidenttikunnan kassaholvista - mormonikirkko - mormonit
		The salamander letter and several other documents Hofmann had sold to the church were still in Washington at the FBI laboratory.
		The Salamander letter, for example, changed the story of the Angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith to that of a cantankerous and tricky "old spirit" who transformed himself from a white salamander and struck Joseph Smith.
		Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks tried to reconcile the Salamander letter with Joseph Smith's account by saying: "One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their readers that there is another meaning of 'salamander,' which may even have been the primary meaning...
	www.mormonismi.net /artikkelit/mclellin_paperit.shtml (12222 words)

	Times & Seasons » There Has to Be Error
		And the Church itself (somewhat later) published the Salamander letter in the Church news, not as a hoax, but as an authenticatable historical artifact, which it did not turn out to be.
		The Salamander letter was shown to be undeniably and irrefutably a fabrication.
		There were no dissenters in the authenticity of the letter except the Tanners, though one could say that the Brethren dragged their feet about it (it took more than a year for it to be published).
	www.timesandseasons.org /?p=988 (10214 words)

	Mormon: Mark Hofmann - Fooled the Mormon Prophets and Apostles
		So Hofmann concocted the “salamander letter,” an account of JS encountering a talking salamander that turned into an angel.
		After law enforcement forgery experts declared the salamander letter a fake, however, the brethren had to spin their way back out without making it look like they had been duped and swindled.
		Because this success is obviously not as satisfying as the success in scenario B. Then, miraculously, the FBI come the GAs rescue and they are able to reveal God's true plan for the Salamander letters to the people.
	www.exmormon.org /mormon/mormon322.htm (3243 words)

	Further Tanner comments
		Sandra Tanner wanted to use the Salamander letter against the LDS Church but they FELT uneasy about it.
		In that letter, he wrote that: "God the Father and Jesus, with the ancient apostles, prophets, patriarchs and men of God have revealed to Joseph Smith principles on which hang the destinies of the world...."
		Although this may or may not be taken as a clear example of John Taylor's knowledge of the first vision, allow me to quote from others of his sermons in the Journal of Discourses (hereafter abbreviated to JD).
	www.angelfire.com /ga/kevgram/pyletan.html (1769 words)

	Commentary on "Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders", Mark Hofmann, and more
		And finally when Mike George of CAO laid out the evidence to Mike Quinn that the salamander letter was a forgery, even pointing out that the woman who owned the Nathan Harris song book said the book did not have the Martin Harris poem, continued to stand by the authenticity of the letter.
		Since finishing Salamander, I have turned to Arrington's Adventures of a Church Historian and Victims again.
		Both Salamander and Victims say that Mark and Dori found the transcript in the Bible, but Arrington say's it was Mark and AJ Simmons.
	www.lds-mormon.com /sillitoe.shtml (901 words)

	Hofmann case revisited
		Hofmann’s most famous forgery, the “white salamander letter” he claimed was by early church member Harris, described a threatening reptile guarding the Golden Plates church members believe were the source of the Book of Mormon.
		The salamander letter was particularly valued at the time because no other example of Harris’ handwriting exists, Sessions said.
		A month earlier, he had the same bad news for the owner of a letter purporting to list what was taken out of church leader Smith’s and his brother Hyrum’s pockets after the two died in the Carthage, Ill., jail.
	www.religionnewsblog.com /12421/hofmann-case-revisited (1590 words)

	Mormonism and Plagiarism, Salt Lake City Messenger, May 1987, Mormon History, Mormonism, Mormons, LDS, Jerald and ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		It is true that the letter was not really written by Martin Harris and that Mark Hofmann added some of his own ideas, but most of the letter is based on actual historical facts found in affidavits and early Mormon writings.
		The church's own newspaper, Deseret News, had already reported that the Salamander letter had been "authenticated" as having come from the pen of Martin Harris, and since Harris was supposed to be the main scribe for the 116 missing pages, the Salamander letter would have been used to authenticate the book of Lehi.
		We are of the opinion that Mark Hofmann was well aware of the plagiarism and forgery that took place under the early Mormon leaders, and, although his actions cannot be excused, he may have decided to use their methods in an attempt to show what the true history of the church was really like.
	www.xmission.com /~country/reason/plagiar.htm (10339 words)

	Joseph Smith: America's Hermetic Prophet
		When disclosed publicly in 1985, the "Salamander letter"--as it became known--received prominent discussion in the national media, and stimulated intense new activity in circles studying early Mormonism.
		Unsettled by the damaging publicity brought by the letter, Mormon church authorities began negotiating with Hofmann to purchase and sequester other "newly discovered" materials, particularly any that might impugn orthodox versions of their history.
		Complex forensic investigations revolving around the murder eventually revealed the "Salamander letter" and several companion documents to be bogus--the pathologically intuitive creations of Hofmann, a master forger turned killer.
	gnosis.org /ahp.htm (5305 words)

	A Gathering of Saints - Book Review
		But instead of an angel telling Joseph where to dig for the plates, in the Harris letter a spirit appears to Joseph, transforms itself into a white salamander, and strikes him three times.
		LDS church authorities were understandably very unhappy with the occultic overtones of the letter, which only reinforced similar findings linking the founding prophet of Mormonism to biblically forbidden occult practices.
		Though they did their best to suppress this and other non "faith promoting" documents, Hofmann purposefully leaked information to key sources, hoping to pressure the Church into buying the "Salamander letter." He also continued to find more documents and offer these sensitive items to the Church for a price.
	www.irr.org /mit/GATHERING.HTML (747 words)

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