After I had retired into the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. But exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction (not to imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world who had such a marvelous power as I had never before felt in my being), just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun; which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages (whose brightness and glory defy all description) standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said (pointing to the other), "This is my beloved Son; hear him."

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of the sects was right, and that I might know which to join. No sooner therefore did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at the time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong), and which I should join. I was answered that I should join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that 'those professors were all corrupt; they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrine the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.' He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me which I can not write at this time.

When I came to myself again I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven.

—Church History, vol. 1, pp. 9,10.