Joseph Smith Rebukes Evil/False Spirits in Kirtland (1831)

Multiple contemporaneous accounts report that when Joseph Smith arrived in Kirtland in early 1831 his presence and priesthood authority dispelled false spiritual manifestations troubling the local branch. Philo Dibble recorded that a branch had been raised up in Kirtland before the Prophet came, and that "a variety of false spirits were manifested, such as caused jumping, shouting, falling down, etc." Dibble reported that when Joseph arrived he declared, "God has sent me here, and the devil must leave here, or I will," and that the delusive spirits were not seen or heard thereafter.

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner likewise recalled that after Oliver Cowdery and his brethren left for Missouri “a wrong spirit crept into our midst, and a few were led away by it.” She recorded that Joseph “came in time to rebuke the evil spirits, and set the church in order,” and that the Saints felt he spoke “with power, and as one having authority in very deed.”

George A. Smith provided a contemporaneous report of a related episode at the first ordination to the High Priesthood in Kirtland in June 1831. He wrote that the ordination meeting was held in a log schoolhouse about eighteen by twenty feet, and that a Methodist minister, Ezra Booth, was "bound" with his countenance distorted. To the brethren’s astonishment, Joseph came forward, rebuked the foul spirit, and commanded it to depart; as a result Booth was relieved.

Taken together these accounts describe Joseph Smith’s authoritative rebuke of false or evil spirits in Kirtland in 1831: the general cessation of disruptive spiritual manifestations on his arrival, his setting the branch in order, and the specific relief of Ezra Booth at the High Priest ordination.