“It Is Almost Certainly Genuine”

On February 15, 1973, one year after assuming the role of Church Historian in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Leonard J. Arrington recorded a meeting with Elder Joseph Anderson, Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and recent Secretary for the First Presidency. The meeting concerned “the Fundamentalists” who published four concealed revelations: The Wilderness Revelation of Wilford Woodruff on the establishment of the United Order, John Taylor's appointment of Heber J. Grant and George Teasdale to the apostleship, a revelation that escaped Arrington's memory, and a “supposed” revelation by John Taylor in 1886 that affirmed the irrevocable nature of eternal ordinances. In his recollection of the meeting, he elaborated on this final document: “The First Presidency or at least Joseph Fielding Smith has long declared that this is a forgery—that President Taylor did not receive such a revelation.”1 The view that the 1886 revelation was a forgery—or nonexistent—was held by many since Heber J. Grant's 1931 and 1933 statements on the matter that became known colloquially as the “Third Manifesto.”2 Given past statements by church leaders, Arrington's aside was not unusual.However, by 1976, Arrington's diaries reveal a change of heart regarding the 1886 revelation. During this period, Elder Mark E. Peterson formed an “unofficial committee” to discuss the fundamentalist movement which gained increased popularity in the 1970s with local leadership and members of the church.. Study groups that once sought like-minded discussion on “deep doctrine” now questioned the authority structure of the institutional church, and once “hidden revelations” found a standard place in Mormon bookstores that dotted the Intermountain West. Practicing Latter-day Saints sought answers to the church's shift from a peculiar group to a mainstream American religion, and official narratives of the church were insufficient to satisfy their curiosity.Reflecting on these matters, Glenn Rudd, a General Authority during Arrington's tenure, explained that the biggest hurdle the church faced was the secrecy around post-Manifesto plural marriages, a documented reality even among church leaders. The other problem, Arrington noted on January 30, 1976, was “the failure of the Church to acknowledge the validity of the Revelation of 1886. Joseph Fielding Smith denied it, but it is almost certainly genuine.”3Archives are haunted places. Within their walls, memories are preserved and invoked, cast into the shadows, and called to life. They are technologies of governance and modern attempts to control meaning, something Arrington came to find as a source of incredible frustration toward the end of his tenure as Church Historian.4 The memories they hold, made tangible through written documentation, are equally spectral. They exist in a liminal space of existence and disappearance. Their presence offers divergent ways to tell similar stories and give voice to disparate people. Which specters are called forth at a given moment is the construction of history, as well as the formation of meaning and value.5For over one hundred years, the 1886 revelation was a specter that haunted modern Mormonism. In her work on eternal polygamy, Carol Lynn Pearson described what this history feels like for many Latter-day Saint women. Polygamy is the visible invisible that reappears time and again as a reminder of the past and a warning to women as they enter into the sealing ordinance.6 The revelation that became synonymous with the modern practice, though not directly discussed by Pearson, is a tangible reminder of this reality because of its potential to alter history and codified historical narratives. Its invisibility is precisely the reason it became a valuable tool for the Mormon fundamentalist movement. It was merely “pretended,” but there were photocopies that circulated through the Mormon Underground.7 It was “inauthentic,” but Joseph F. Smith copied the record held by John Taylor's son and placed it in the archive. Its treatment made it uncanny and capable of being anything to anyone. This included the fundamentalists who became an annoyance to Latter-day Saint archivists, librarians, and historians in the 1970s.When Arrington referenced the “Fundamentalists” who promoted the existence of the 1886 revelation, the only figure mentioned by name was Fred Collier. Throughout the 1970s, Collier was a frequent visitor to the church archives, making copies of early Mormon sources and publishing lesser-known or previously unpublished documents. His work unearthed the past and brought the specters of Mormonism to life. This did not go unnoticed by archivists who were familiar with the work of Sandra Tanner and others labeled “anti-Mormon” who sought to “reveal” the secrets of the past. Collier's publications, including his “Mormon Underground Press” and what Arrington referred to as his “apostate tendencies,” eventually cost him the ability to access sources in the Church History Department. This expulsion, however, proved fruitless. In the years following his barred entry from the archive, Collier employed others to scour the library on his behalf, sometimes stealing documents. “Specifically, he has had an unrecognized assistant check out a microfilm, substitute another in the machine, run off to a duplicator outside the building, and then come back and place the original back in the machine. . . . This has made it possible for him to publish the underground items which he has distributed.”8 The effort Collier took to bring documents to light highlights a difference between Collier and others who published previously concealed records. He believed that the secrets of the past were immutable truths necessary for exaltation. This was a divine calling.Among the early texts that Collier printed, only three years after Arrington noted his ban from the archive, were the 1886 revelation and supplemental documents pertaining to it. To his credit, Collier cited his sources throughout his Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He explains, “These revelations were all taken from a small note book kept by President Taylor's daughter Annie Taylor Hyde. Manuscript copies of this record can be found in the John Taylor papers at the Church Historian's Office; also in the Manuscripts division at the University of Utah Library, and in Special Collections at the BYU Library. Other manuscript copies of these revelations are also existent in the John Taylor papers of the Church Historian's Office.”9 Collier benefited from the archival silence on the revelation. From the pulpit, the revelation was “pretended,” but the official historical record was relatively quiet on John Taylor's official writings. To date, John Taylor's papers have not experienced the same widespread circulation as the writings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, or Wilford Woodruff.Collier conceded that controversy surrounded the document, specifically regarding its provenance. However, he assured readers that any debate was unwarranted. This was due to a provenance timeline that mainly remained intact from the earliest years of the fundamentalist movement. His timeline included references to the document in Abraham Cannon's March 29, 1892, diary entry,10 John Taylor's 1911 disciplinary hearing in which he carried a copy of his father's revelation,11 and Joseph Fielding Smith copying the document for the archive on August 3, 1909.12 In his reprint, Collier titled the documents, “Revelation given to John Taylor, September 27, 1886, copies from the original manuscript by Joseph F. Smith Jr. August 3, 1909.” To support his claim about the validity of the document, Collier further included two photographs of the original, as well as the copy published in Truth magazine's 1949 issue.13 Plans for this publication began on April 12, 1938, at the Woolley School of the Prophets, when it was determined that a “photostatic copy” of the revelation would appear in the magazine.14 By the time Arrington learned about the revelation that Elder Anderson deemed a forgery in 1973, the authenticity of the document was well-known. Those who publicly declared it fake were wading into the conspiratorial.By the time Arrington learned about the revelation and its printing by the Mormon Underground Press, the document had been in circulation for almost forty years and developed a tradition of accompanying stories, myths, and legends. Many of these accounts became conspiratory in their own right, using the unseen archival record as a springboard for doctrinal development. As time progressed, conspiracy became the rule surrounding the mythologized document for both fundamentalists and Latter-day Saints.There was no limit to what could exist in the revelation or the limits of its usefulness. It certainly held the ability to cast doubt on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a good-faith narrator in relation to the history of plural marriage. Maybe they wanted it hidden because it was true and implicated the church in a lie when they announced the end to polygamy in an attempt to appease the federal government. Maybe church leaders were still practicing polygamy and using this document as their justification.15 Maybe John Taylor levitated when he met with the resurrected Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith at the time of the revelation. Maybe a clandestine priesthood was established because of the encounter. The obfuscation of the revelation allowed these accounts to flourish. The church denied the existence of a document that fundamentalists readily printed in their magazines. The archival possibilities were endless and anything was possible.Lorin C. Woolley's account of the revelation, in particular, was truly fantastical. To be sure, the stories he told about his life and the nature of God garnered him a reputation among current fundamentalists that has since called even his more plausible historical narratives into question. This includes his claims to have been John Taylor's bodyguard, that he worked for the United States Secret Service, that he possessed secret knowledge of Theodore Roosevelt's Mormon baptism, and that he taught his associates phrases in the Adamic language. However, when it came to the revelation, his tale bore just enough believability that newly ostracized families sought his history as a source of consolation.According to Woolley, who claimed he was present on the evening of September 29, 1886, Taylor retired to his room to pray about increased federal surveillance over polygamy. Light emanated from the room as Taylor had “a very pleasant conversation all night with Brother Joseph [Smith].”16 Given the duration of the encounter, the event is referred to as the Eight Hour Meeting by believers. As Woolley continued telling this story over the years, the once quiet conversation between Taylor and heavenly beings became an audible jubilation with the entire host of heaven: At the time of the meeting of Sept. 27, 1886, during the meeting singing was heard, first by only four or five of the thirteen present, the last song being heard by all present. A quartet sang, “The Birth of Christ”, and a double quartet sang, “Birth of Joseph Smith” and the “Seer”. Two or three other songs were sung. The singing was beautiful. After the singing ceased, Pres. Taylor remarked, “That is the first time I have heard a heavenly choir.”17Following the proclamation from heaven, Taylor penned the now-infamous twelve-line revelation that solidified the eternality of plural sealings in Mormon cosmology.18 With the choirs of heaven proclaiming polygamy's eternal nature, Taylor affirmed that it was here to stay.What happened next remains a matter of speculation. The historical record is silent on the immediate aftermath of the meeting, creating the ideal historical climate for the emergence of an early iteration of fundamentalist conspirituality around the practice of polygamy.19 Taylor died in July 1887, shortly after the Eight Hour Meeting. The revelation was not unique to Taylor, who believed in the importance of polygamy and was willing to bring down the fire of heaven to defend its place in the lives of the Saints. However, to Woolley, something did happen, and the silence of the archival record acted in his favor. He explained, “You will have the weight of this world upon you, and one of you will have to stand alone. Joseph Smith laid his hands upon the heads, while John Taylor set them apart or acted as their mouth. Joseph Smith expressed surprise that George Q. Cannon did not know that Lorin C. Woolley had been an Apostle.”20 Taylor further lauded the men present in the room, while condemning those who stood in their way. “At the 1886 meeting, John Taylor said: Kings and Queens and the rulers of the earth will pay tribute to some of you and your associates. Those who take part in casting you out and are vicious, their names shall be blotted out from the Book of Life.”21Scholars of Mormon fundamentalism have long agreed that John Taylor penned the revelation, while arguing that subsequent ordinations lack contemporary evidence to support their validity. Stories about a rogue Priesthood Council established to perpetuate the practice only exist in Woolley's accounts and the writing of his later followers. This never mattered. The institutional church's voracious denial of the revelation the fundamentalists depended on for assurance of their faith was referenced in diaries, copied and carried into disciplinary councils, and held in the church's archive thanks to Joseph F. Smith. The fundamentalist movement came to believe this denial was in the Church's best interest, as it sought to align itself with a vision of modernity that would not tolerate such a peculiar remnant of the past.22 The subsequent denial of the ordinations only made sense. The specter of polygamy was prevalent enough that parsing out which denials were based in reality became impossible for believers. The conclusion that followed was that the church not only held the truth regarding Taylor's revelation, but also his ordinations. MS 34928, “John Taylor revelation, 1886 September 27,” is in the archive. Fundamentalists will understandably ask if the ordinations are also in the archive.Woolley did not discuss the revelation or ordinations publicly until 1921 at a meeting of disenfranchised Mormons who found community and purpose in Woolley's account of history. When the history was discussed, he offered little in terms of historical evidence. His only evidence for the occurrence was that he was there and maybe heard the voices of angels. However, he had copies of copies and the church's silence on the matter. Both acted together as valuable tools that shrouded the past in secrecy, allowing Woolley to become the voice of reason to those who found the official church's stance too conveniently aligned with a hostile government. Outside of copies, all that existed was hearsay and stories with little verification, such as the early claim that Elder Melvin J. Ballard wrote a letter acknowledging “among other things, the existence of a revelation in John Taylor's handwriting of 1886.”23 The revelation's seeming non-existence made Mormon fundamentalists out to be conspirators (notwithstanding the many conspiracies around the revelation) and its potential existence made Latter-day Saint authorities untrustworthy guardians of the past.Years after Leonard Arrington wrote in his diary about the existence of the Taylor document, on June 14, 2025, back channels and social media groups of fundamentalist Mormons came to life as the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirmed that the 1886 revelation was, in fact, genuine. It is simply MS 34928, “John Taylor revelation, 1886 September 27.” Emotions ran high as phone calls, text messages, and social media posts sought to express a century's worth of reactions. Without fanfare, context, or explanation, the specter of Mormon polygamy (including its continuation in the present) emerged from the archive and made itself known once again. For historians familiar with the history, the appearance of the 1886 revelation was an acknowledgement of an accepted, but not provable, fact. For fundamentalists, it was a vindication of a long-held belief that cost them family, livelihood, and, at times, membership in the church they loved. For people unfamiliar with the history, it raised more questions than it answered.In her work on Mesmerism and belief in the nineteenth-century, Emily Ogden argues that to be “modern” is not to be free from credulity, but to manage it correctly.24 This is the project of religious history, generally, that seeks narratives of the past in light of the modern world. In the contemporary archive, the ghosts in the past become reminders, warnings, and entities that call out for justice. The spirits of the past, embodied in the documents that tell their story, continually punctuate the present across multiple centuries, demanding a response from those residing in the present. If this is true, and I believe it is, the emergence of the 1886 revelation from the archive is precisely the specter of Mormonism that calls for a reevaluation of how post-Manifesto history was constructed and who counted as a historian of Mormonism's past. It also calls for an evaluation of the cost of historical suppression. Arrington was right about the document; it was most certainly genuine. This realization came long after the pesky fundamentalists he referenced in his diary.