Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 91 
of the twelve apostles, and at first had confidence in 
them, but September 1st, 1845, he had one of those 
visions so conveniently common to Mormons in that day, 
in which he says, ‘““He saw all the tribulations the Mor- 
mons had passed through, and that it was a punishment 
for their errors. Then he saw into the future; that the 
Lord’s Hosts, under new methods, triumphed in the 
West.” He did not then understand the vision, and in 
fact it-was not published for several years. He was mar- 
ried again in 1846 and sealed for time and eternity under 
what the twelve apostles called “The Endowment.” 
When the twelve apostles started west on their journey 
that finally ended in Utah, Thompson began to have 
doubts, and regarded them as apostates and tried to 
agree with the faction that followed Mr. Strang, known 
as the “Strangites,” but soon regarded him as an impos- 
ter, and went off by himself to St. Louis and went to 
work at the tailor’s trade again. In January, 1848, he 
claimed to have received a revelation or proclamation 
from “Baneemy,” a spirit successor to Joseph Smith, by 
whom he was appointed agent, and in 1849 he claimed to 
have received the “Grand Kev” which qualified him to 
act as “Chief Teacher of the Schools of Preparation,” 
and in 1850 he organized what he called his first class in 
the covenant. About January Ist, 1851, he commenced 
to publish a small monthly magazine of eight pages, 
which he styled “Zion’s Harbinger and Baneemy’s Or- 
gan.” This paper was full of Mormon theology and 
treated of the different views of the numerous factions 
into which the Mormon body had been divided after the 
death of Joseph Smith. It contained letters from numer- 
ous correspondents and subscribers. In it Thompson 
published his claims as Chief Teacher under his visions 
and revelations from Baneemy and gathered something 
of a following. His spiritual claim was that Joseph 
Smith was only a spiritual teacher, and by assuming 
temporal authority had provoked divine wrath and that 
there was no spiritual successor to Joseph Smith direct, 
but under the authority as set out in the Book of Mor- 
mon, the Lord would raise up in time someone to take 
up the work, and that so by revelatien the Spirit 
“Bancemy” had received such authority, and in like man- 
