Seer
The concept captured by the title “seer” involves sight. Seeing is the hallmark of the seer. They have vision.1 A seer is someone who has knowledge of things which cannot be seen with the natural eye.2 When Joseph Smith received the Urim and Thummim from an angel, he was told: the possession and use of these stones were what constituted seers in ancient or former time s… (JSH 3:3; see also Mosiah 5:13 CE). When anyone has possession of such an instrument, they are, by definition, a seer; the instrument itself allows the possessor to see the past, present, and future. However, it is not necessary to possess this instrument to be a seer.3 Whenever hidden knowledge is revealed to a person, the recipient is a seer. Whether they have a Urim and Thummim or not, anyone receiving Divine revelation of future or past events has the gift of seership.4 It remains the calling of a seer to reveal things which are secret or hidden.5 Seers have a responsibility to teach others or, if their contemporary generation rejects them, to leave a written testimony for future generations.6 Any people who have a seer among them gain knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come.7 Mankind needs living seers, or they are cut off from one of the gifts intended to guide them.8 Seership and exaltation are connected.9 “There is no reason you cannot also receive the gift of seership to guide you as occasion requires. The knowledge of some things requires you to behold the past, present and future.”10 Seership is a voluntary process; anyone who is willing to follow the path to get there may climb the mountain and see into the distance.11 Seership is something that all ought to expect will be included in the Lord’s tutelage while they are here.12 The Lord demonstrates the gift of seership; He provides it as an experience. This can be relayed by giving an instrument, like the Urim and Thummim, or washing the eyes, as in the case of Enoch. The seer is then admonished to use the gift and to “accomplish it as an assignment,” which requires effort on his part to figure it out; since the gift was previously experienced with the Lord, he is left to work out how to do so again. In this sense, seership is ultimately an assignment or a task to be accomplished, but it is one for which a prior pattern has been provided as a gift.13
1 Eighteen Verses, 135.
2 Ibid., 55.
3 Ibid., 129.
4 Ibid., 136.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., 135.
7 Ibid., 139.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 129n77.
10 Ibid., 139.
11 Ibid., 135.
12 “Who can be a Seer?” Feb. 19, 2010, blog post.
13 Email, January 15, 2023.