The purpose of this book is to give you an informal glimpse of astonishing personalities within the Latter-Day Saint Movement. This work is for informational purposes aimed at your personal enlightenment and not designed to be placed within the academic field. It may be considered as a guidebook, or a "Who's Who," revealing remarkable individuals related to the theme of this book. Simply put, this book is basically a narrative of "free-spirited" individuals associated with the movement by birth, membership or association along with their notable achievements. As you have noticed, the title introduces three words: Seers, Saints, and Sinners. Within the context of this book, we must know the meanings of these words as they are applied herein. By definition, a "seer" is a person who sees things others cannot, a person who prophesies future events, a person endowed with profound moral and spiritual insight or knowledge, or a person who is reputed to have special powers of divination, as a crystal gazer or palmist. You will discover Joseph Smith was not the only personality claiming to be a seer to guide his followers. During the early days of the Latter-Day Saint Movement up to the present, there have been numerous individuals claiming to have received revelations from God. They truly believed in their seership, and convinced many members of the movement to follow them. The majority of these kinds of seers are connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claiming the church is in a state of apostasy or have received new scriptures from God.
Most people understand the word "saint" pertains to an individual of exceptional virtue, benevolence, and holiness of life, formally recognized as such by the Christian Church, especially by canonization. As used in this book, a saint is a founder, sponsor, or patron, of a movement or organization. In certain religious groups, such as those of the Latter-Day Saint Movement, the word is applied by the members to themselves. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints specifically refer to themselves as "saints." This book will cover the full spectrum of saints from persons not in harmony with church doctrines to those with an unwavering testimony, faith, and commitment towards the benefit of all humanity regardless of gender, race, or religion.
Obviously, we all know what a "sinner" is. By definition a sinner is a person who has broken a religious or moral law; one that has voluntarily violated the divine law; a moral agent who has voluntarily disobeyed any divine precept, or neglected any known duty; an unregenerate person; one who has not received the pardon of his sins. I felt obligated to reveal a few sinners that either rebelled against the movement for selfish and personal glorification, or committed serious infractions of moral laws. Some deliberately used deception to challenge the church. Those that have committed murder and mayhem are surely classified as sinners, and several are mentioned in this work.
As this book is organized into informal short accounts, please take your time going over each profile or casually read them in any preferred order. From the examples of those presented in this book we should never be ashamed to be different from our peers. The world is a better place when we have variety of thoughts and actions; otherwise, we would be no better off than sheep in the fields, exclusively relying on nature alone. Besides, you may discover personalities in this book that are just like yourself!
REED S. ANDERSON
