Henry Moyle Interviews Whitmer

Moyle also made it clear regarding his concerns. His difficulty was not whether the experience was not real, or didn't happen "in real life."

Moyle described what he was trying to articulate about Whitmer’s testimony:

There was only one thing that did not fully satisfy me. I had difficulty then as I have now to describe just what was unsatisfactory. I wrote in my diary immediately on my return home, that in describing the scene in the woods he was 'somewhat spiritual in his explanations and not as materialistic as I wished.' That was my description then and I cannot make it any clearer now. He said, 'It was indescribable; that it was through the power of God.' He then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ, and his associates did not, because it is only seen in the spirit.

I asked if the atmosphere about them was normal. Then he said it was indescribable, but the light was bright and clear, yet apparently a different kind of light, something of a soft haze I concluded.

A few years before in an interview with President Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Orson Pratt, they reported that he said it was more brilliant than that of the noonday sun.

I have wondered if there was a special significance, not clear to me, in the language used by the three witnesses in their testimony referring to the golden plates, 'And they have been shown unto us by the power of God and not of man.' The either witnesses say the plates were shown unto them by Joseph Smith. That I call materialistic, the other spiritual, and I could not get anything more out of it.....[1]

Moyle wanted a "materialistic" description of what happened, but in some aspects that wasn't possible--Whitmer couldn't explain what seeing an angel and hearing the voice of God were like.

It is clear that Moyle did not regard this as evidence that Whitmer's experience was not convincing, or that it was unreal. He simply realized that there was an aspect to the Three Witnesses' experience which they could not fully communicate in materialistic, every-day language. One sees this difficulty in many of their accounts.

Skeptics repeatedly attempted to infer that the experiences were, therefore, purely mental, or imaginary. The witnesses rejected this interpretation repeatedly, though The CES Letter continues the error. Click here.

Some have tried to argue that the Eight witnesses only claimed a 'spiritual' or 'visionary' view of the plates, not a literal, physical one. The witnesses left concrete statements regarding the physical nature of the plates. There were others besides the eleven who saw and felt the plates, and testified that they were real.