Sandra Tanner discusses one of the most intriguing episodes in Mormon history: her early inquiry into the missing 1832 First Vision account. (She didn't know it was missing at the time. The account was allegedly ripped out of the Joseph Smith journal by Church Historian Joseph Fielding Smith. This pursuit led Sandra directly into correspondence with Joseph Fielding Smith, then Church Historian, concerning what she believed was the original, definitive record of Joseph Smith’s earliest spiritual experience.

https://youtu.be/1pDKtA4RfmE

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0:00 Tanner's Secret Polygamy
4:57 Sandra's Teen LDS Experiences
19:06 Sandra's Role in Missing First Vision Account?
The Path to Critical Inquiry
Sandra Tanner’s journey into questioning Mormon orthodoxy was significantly shaped by her mother, who was already deep into researching early Mormonism in the late 1950s. Sandra’s mother insisted on finding chapter and verse for religious claims, refusing to simply take the word of "the brethren" or rely solely on church manuals, often disrupting Sunday school classes with her inquisitive mind.

Sandra’s first met Jerald Tanner in the 1950s. He introduced her to David Whitmer's thinking and the ideas of Pauline Hancock’s group, the Church of Christ-Bible & Book of Mormon). This set the stage for intense study.

A major focal point of this research was the nature of God and how the changing views of God affected the narrative of the First Vision. Sandra noted that the Book of Mormon, in its earliest form, presented a view of God that did not align with the current Mormon understanding of a separate Father and Son.
Conflicting First Vision Narratives
As Sandra, Jerald, and her mother poured over available documents, they focused on inconsistencies surrounding the First Vision:

* Fawn Brodie’s Observation: The first edition of No Man Knows My History had raised the issue that the earliest references to an experience before the 1823 angel Moroni visitation often seemed to refer only to an angel or messenger, not the Father and Son.
* The Historical Record Change: Sandra’s aunt acquired a copy of Andrew Jensen’s Historical Record (from the 1880s), which contained an account where Joseph went into the woods to pray and a "messenger, an angel" appeared to him. However, her aunt’s copy was a later reprint (circa 1890 or 1891) that changed the text to say "the Christ appears to him," raising questions about when the shift occurred and why the Father was excluded in that version.

Sandra and her associates reasoned that if the First Vision story was constantly evolving, they needed to see the genesis of the account.
The Letter & Missing 1832 First Vision Account
In the early 1960s (circa 1961), Sandra, Jerald, and her mother formulated a letter outlining these historical questions to be sent to then-Church Historian, Joseph Fielding Smith. Sandra simply assumed that an initial written account must exist and requested a photocopy of the "original Joseph Smith handwritten account of the First Vision".

Little did Sandra know that some people, like her friend Lamar Peterson, did know about a "strange account" (the 1832 version) that had been shown to him by Levi Edgar Young, who was sworn to secrecy by Joseph Fielding Smith.

Sandra’s request, though based on assumption, might have caused immediate alarm in the Church Historian's Office. Sandra speculates that Joseph Fielding Smith had pr...