The Appearance of an Evil Spirit to Brother Burgess
Published October 15, 2026 at 1:25 PM
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Young Woman's Journal Research
After being administered to by President Goodman and Elder Dry, Brother Burgess, who was sick in bed, was visited by a personage who claimed to be one of the evil spirits responsible for his illness. The entity told him they had been called off from killing him by a higher authority, which they were forced to obey to avoid punishment, describing the government of the spirit world as despotic.
In Their Own Words
“I was lying in bed, very sick, and had been administered to by President Goodman and Elder Dry. I was left alone for a few moments, when a personage appeared at my bedside. He looked like a man, but his eyes were like balls of fire. He said to me, 'Well, that was a heavy lick we gave you.' I made no reply. Presently he continued, 'But it was not quite enough to send you over.' I replied, 'While you was at it why did you not finish me?' 'We were called on to halt.' I asked, 'Do you make a practice of minding such calls?' 'We have to,' was his reply. I said, 'How is that?' 'You know as well as I do,' said he. He then vanished, and I felt much better from that time.”
— Brother Burgess, as quoted in The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 6, no. 4
Sources & References
The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 6 no. 4 (January 1895). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/11525 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high) Full first-person account: The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 6 no. 4 (January 1895), p. 188 https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/11525
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