[Joseph] Smith is the only person at present, to my knowledge, who pretends to hold converse with the inhabitants of the celestial world. It seems from his statements, that he can have access to them, when and where he pleases. He does not pretend that he sees them with his natural, but with his spiritual eyes; and he says he can see them as well with his eyes shut, as with them open. So also in translating.-The subject stands before his eyes in print, but it matters not whether his eyes are open or shut; he can see as well one way as the other.
...Smith describes an angel, as having the appearance of a "tall, slim, well built, handsome man, with a bright pillar upon his head." The Devil once, he says, appeared to him in the same form, excepting upon his head he had a "black pillar," and by this mark, he was able to distinguish him from the former.
It passes for a current fact in the Mormonite church, that there are immense treasures in the earth, especially in those places in the State of N.Y. from whence many of the Mormonites emigrated last spring: and when they become sufficiently purified, these treasures are to be poured into the lap of their church; and then, to use their own language, they are to be the richest people in the world. These treasures were discovered several years since, by means of the dark glass, the same with which Smith says he translated most of the Book of Mormon-Several of those persons, together with Smith, who were formerly unsuccessfully engaged in digging and searching for these treasures, now reside in this county, and from themselves I received this information.
[Ezra Booth to Ira Eddy, 24 October 1831, in Larry E. Morris, I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God: Joseph Smith's Account of the Angel and the Plates]
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