First Communication

The long shadow cast by the minister’s rejection explains why Smith’s memory formed and re-formed as it did in the context of later experiences. In 1835 Joseph Smith consolidated, and his scribe recorded, a spontaneous memory of his first vision. It differs markedly from his other accounts primarily because it was cued spontaneously by a conversation, not by a premeditated effort to record autobiography. It shows that, given the right cues and context, he could make a memory that did not need to respond to the Methodist minister, whether to please him (as in 1832) or to rebuke him (as in 1838/39).