Mormonism Explained

Mormonism Explained

The Book by the Pool

Visions of Glory promised its readers a front-row seat to the end of the world. Fourteen years later, we test every claim it made — against the record, against its author’s own letter, and against the standard works.

By Todd Noall · August 26, 2026 · 18 minute read

The Short Answer

Is Visions of Glory true?

Not by any test the book itself invites. Measured against the Latter-day Saint standard works, its claims about priesthood, revelation, the kingdoms of glory, discerning spirits, and the risen Christ conflict with the canon at page-citable points. Measured against the public record, not one of its six major predicted events has occurred in fourteen years. The claim that an apostle encouraged publication has never been verified — and the only apostolic counsel the author himself documents told him not to interpret the experiences at all.

Key Takeaways

  • The book at the chair. Visions of Glory(Cedar Fort, 2012) was visible in the Kauai body-camera footage played at Lori Vallow’s murder trial — the day police ordered her to produce two children who had been dead almost four months.
  • “Spencer” is Thom Harrison. The anonymous visionary identified himself in a March 23, 2014 letter to his priesthood leaders; the book’s authorized fan site now confirms it.
  • Six doctrinal conflicts, page-cited. Faithful reviewers documented most of them in 2015, years before the book touched a criminal case.
  • Zero of six predicted events. Fourteen years on, nothing the book describes has happened — and because it gave no dates, the honest verdict is unfulfilled, not failed.
  • The letter and the exhibits. The 2014 letter files the visions under “personal.” Court exhibits from 2021 and 2023 show written, signed visionary authority exercised over another man’s life.
  • The test is on the shelf. Every doctrinal check here was run with the four volumes already in nearly every Latter-day Saint home.

Cold Open

January 25, 2020

January 25, 2020. A resort pool on the island of Kauai.

Two Kauai Police Department officers cross the deck, body cameras rolling. On the lounge chairs in front of them: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, recently arrived from Idaho.

The officers hand Vallow a court order. It directs her to physically produce her two children — JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan — to authorities in Idaho within five days. She reads it. Asked whether she has questions, she says no. She stays by the pool.

The children had been dead for almost four months.

Three years later, prosecutors played that body-camera footage at her murder trial — and viewers noticed something at her chair. A book. Fox 10 investigative reporter Justin Lum identified it: Visions of Glory, a 2012 account of near-death experiences and end-times visions, narrated by an anonymous Latter-day Saint called “Spencer” — a Utah therapist named Thom Harrison, as he would later admit in writing.

Lori Vallow was convicted of murdering both of her children. Chad Daybell was convicted of murdering the children and his first wife, Tammy, and sentenced to death.

The book outlived the story it was found inside. It is still in print. It has never stopped selling.

The book, in brief

The book

Orientation

Visions of Glory: One Man’s Astonishing Account of the Last Days (Cedar Fort, December 2012), written by John Pontius from the accounts of a visionary he called “Spencer.”

The book, in brief

The visionary

Orientation

“Spencer” is Thom Harrison, a Utah therapist — by his own written admission in a March 2014 letter to his priesthood leaders.

The book, in brief

The claims

Orientation

Three near-death experiences, followed by visions of financial collapse, plague, nuclear attack, foreign occupation, and a cataclysm striking Salt Lake City. No dates given.

The book, in brief

The reach

Orientation

A fixture of Latter-day Saint prepper culture — and the book at Lori Vallow Daybell’s chair when Kauai police served her in January 2020.

The book, in brief

The test

Orientation

Every checkable claim, graded against the standard works, the public record, and Harrison’s own letter.

So we did something the true-crime economy hasn’t bothered to do. We read Visions of Gloryas a set of claims — and tested every claim that can be tested. Against the public record. Against its author’s own written promises. And against the only measuring rod the book itself claims to honor: the four volumes Mormons actually canonize — the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, the standard works of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Here’s what the tests show.

Part One

What Visions of Glory actually claims

December 2012. A small Utah publisher, Cedar Fort, releases Visions of Glory: One Man’s Astonishing Account of the Last Days. Its writer — veteran Latter-day Saint author John Pontius — dies of cancer two weeks after publication. The man whose visions fill the book is identified only as “Spencer.”

The claims are not small. Spencer reports dying on an operating table, touring the spirit world, and returning — three near-death experiences in all. He reports watching a future America collapse: banks shut and money worthless (p. 99); a bioweapon plague killing billions in successive waves (p. 107); an unprovoked nuclear first strike on the United States, including Utah (p. 109); foreign troops arriving as occupiers dressed as rescuers (p. 107). A cataclysm strikes Salt Lake City. A casualty list of the Church’s senior leaders is published — and Spencer says he learned the names of the dead, though he will never reveal them (p. 113).

And Spencer himself sits at the center of what follows. He reports being ordained by Jesus Christ personally among the 144,000 (p. 151), receiving a seer-stone “portal,” holding an office in the temple beside the Savior’s own (p. 167), and traveling through time on assignment (p. 177).

The book became a phenomenon in Latter-day Saint prepper circles — the communities where Chad Daybell wrote, spoke, and sold his own end-times novels, and where he and Lori Vallow met at a Preparing a People conference in St. George, Utah, in October 2018.

Then, on March 23, 2014 — after meeting with his stake president — Harrison put his identity on paper, in a letter to his priesthood leaders that would take nearly a decade to become public knowledge. Today the book’s own authorized fan site confirms the identification, states that Harrison reviewed the site before it went live, and notes that he served as a bishop — called after the book’s release — and now holds a calling doing mental-health evaluations for prospective missionaries.

Hold that 2014 letter. We’ll come back to it — because it contains commitments, and commitments are testable.

Part Two · Test One

The book vs. the standard works

You don’t need a podcast to test Visions of Glory. You need four books.

Latter-day Saints canonize exactly four volumes of scripture. Every claim below is checked against those texts and nothing else. No commentary. No critics. Canon only.

The table below is our test: the book’s claims, at their page numbers, against the canon’s own words. Any reader with the four volumes can re-run every row.

The book claims

A self-selected priesthood. Spencer describes joining the 144,000 through personal spiritual maturity rather than any Church calling — no presidency, no stewardship, no ordination by leaders. (pp. 151, 175)

The standard works say

D&C 42:11 — no one serves “except he be ordained by some one who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority.” D&C 28:2–7 and 43:2–7 — revelation for the Church comes through one appointed servant. Articles of Faith 1:5 — men are called “by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority.”

Verdict

Contradicted by scripture

The book claims

Advance knowledge of apostles’ deaths. Spencer reports seeing a published casualty list of senior Church leaders — and says he remembers the names. (p. 113)

The standard works say

Amos 3:7 — “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.”

Verdict

Contradicted by scripture

The book claims

Comfortable kingdoms without glory. The book describes pleasant realms, tailored to their occupants’ desires, for those who qualify for no degree of glory. (p. 80)

The standard works say

D&C 76:32–48 — of those outside the kingdoms of glory: “it had been better for them never to have been born”; theirs is “everlasting punishment.”

Verdict

Contradicted by scripture

The book claims

Evil spirits identifiable on sight. Spencer says dark spirits simply look different — smaller, less substantial, misshapen. (p. 90)

The standard works say

D&C 129:4–9 gives a revealed test for messengers precisely because appearance deceives. 2 Corinthians 11:14 — “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” 2 Nephi 9:9 — he “transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light.”

Verdict

Contradicted by scripture

The book claims

A privatized Christ. At a future gathering, Christ speaks a silent, customized message into each attendee’s mind and blesses by glance. (pp. 118–120)

The standard works say

Luke 24; John 20; 3 Nephi 11–19 — the risen Lord teaches from the scriptures, confers authority openly before witnesses, and kneels to pray aloud to the Father.

Verdict

Contradicted by scripture

The book claims

Total demonic control — and free will. Evil spirits gain such control that victims cannot distinguish the spirits’ thoughts from their own (p. 94); yet anyone can repent by an act of free will (p. 96).

The standard works say

2 Nephi 2:27 — men are “free to choose liberty and eternal life… or to choose captivity and death.” Helaman 14:30 — “ye are permitted to act for yourselves.” The book’s two claims cannot both be true.

Verdict

Internally contradictory

For the record: faithful Latter-day Saint reviewers documented many of these same conflicts years before this book touched a criminal case — among them a physician-authored review published by FAIR in 2015 and a critique in Meridian Magazine.

Why row six matters

That last row is not a technicality. The idea that a spirit can be displaced from a living body — that people can be sorted, on sight or by feel, into light and dark — is the conceptual ground on which, prosecutors said at trial, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow built their taxonomy of “zombies”: people whose spirits, they taught, had already left. The book did not instruct anyone to harm anyone, and no serious person claims it did. But the trial record shows the couple carried this book to the very end — and shows where the vocabulary they weaponized was already normalized.

Part Three · Test Two

The prophecies — and the decaying anchor

The book is careful with dates. Spencer says he was not permitted to learn when his visions would occur. There is no deadline to blow — which means honest fact-checking can’t call these prophecies “failed.”

It can call them something else.

I considered it as having happened not far into the future.

Visions of Glory, p. 99

Here’s why that sentence matters more than any date. Spencer anchored his “soon” to the physical world of 2012: the vision’s Salt Lake City, he explains on the same page, looked essentially like the city outside his window — the same streetscape, save for car models he didn’t recognize. The prophecy has no calendar. But it has an anchor.

Fourteen years have passed. Score the testable events.

Fig. 1 — the scoreboard · events described in Visions of Glory

  • Global financial collapse — banks shut, currency worthlessp. 99Not occurred
  • Bioweapon plague killing billions in successive wavesp. 107Not occurred
  • Unprovoked nuclear first strike on the United Statesp. 109Not occurred
  • Foreign military occupation of Americap. 107Not occurred
  • Cataclysm striking the Wasatch Frontpp. 99–104Not occurred
  • Published casualty list of senior Church leadersp. 113Not occurred
Six major event claims, page-cited to the digital edition. Fourteen years after publication, zero have occurred. Because the book declines to give dates, the verdict is unfulfilled — not “failed.”

Fig. 2 — the decaying anchor · 2012–2026

Distance between the vision’s reference city and the real one — growing every yearPredicted events fulfilled: 0 — flat, every year, since publicationJAN 2020 · THE POOL, KAUAI20122016202020242026

The anchor: the Salt Lake City of 2012 — the streetscape the vision called its own near-future

The book gave no dates — but it gave a reference point: a vision-world that looked like 2012. The skyline, the streets, and the fleet on the roads have moved on. The prophecy isn’t just unfulfilled; its own internal anchor is receding into the past.

The obvious objection: what about COVID?

The book’s plague isn’t a pandemic with a survival rate above 99 percent. It is a bioweapon that kills billions in successive waves — arriving alongside nuclear first strikes and a foreign occupation, as one integrated sequence (pp. 107–111). Nothing resembling that sequence has occurred.

The apostle

The book leans on an unnamed apostolic friend — a member of the Quorum of the Twelve — who Spencer says encouraged him toward publication. Prepper communities name him as Elder Neal A. Maxwell, and the identification is closer to home than a rumor: Harrison’s own 2014 letter identifies Elder Maxwell as a member of his ward. But Elder Maxwell died in 2004 — eight years before the book appeared. He cannot confirm an endorsement. No record does. Verdict: never verified.

And the only apostolic counsel Harrison himself put on paper points the other way. In that same letter, Harrison recalls what Elder Maxwell told him about the experiences:

… do not try and interpret these things or read into them.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s counsel, as Harrison recalls it — 2014 letter

Harrison concedes, in hindsight, that it would have been better to follow that counsel. The one documented data point isn’t approval. It’s restraint — unheeded, by the author’s own admission.

One more data point, attributed where it belongs: FAIR’s physician-reviewer judged the book’s account of treating an infected heart at home with oral antibiotics to be medically implausible — a storyteller’s error, in his reading, not a doctor’s.

Part Four · Test Three

The letter vs. the paper trail

March 23, 2014. Thom Harrison meets with his stake president, then writes to his priesthood leaders about Visions of Glory. The letter does two things that matter here.

It claims the visions. The letter’s opening lines identify Harrison, in his own words, as Spencer — the anonymity dissolved by the author himself, on paper, to his own leaders.

And it frames them as personal — experiences never intended to direct the Church or anyone in it, published, Harrison explains, after hearing counsel to share sacred experiences to strengthen fellow Saints. That is his account, and we present it as his account. By every published description of the letter — including from faithful outlets — it reads as a walk-back: regret over the publication, deference to Church leadership, the visions filed firmly under “personal.”

Then there is the paper trail. Not testimony. Not podcast claims. Documents.

Exhibit NUtah Third District CourtDec 6, 2021

A written document titled “Tim Ballard Blessing highlights,” signed by Thom Harrison over his own name. It recounts a priesthood blessing Harrison gave to Tim Ballard — then the most famous anti-trafficking activist in America — describing Ballard as prophetically proclaimed, bound to a covenant to save the remnant of America, and promising that the law-enforcement officers, courts, and police arrayed against him “will be frustrated in their attempts.”

Personal visions do not issue signed, written directives about another man’s divine destiny and legal invulnerability. This document does.

Exhibit OUtah Third District CourtAug 5, 2023

A second blessing message for Ballard — this one voiced by Ken Krogue, president of Ballard’s new organization, The Spear Fund, who frames himself as confirmation of Harrison’s word: “I am a 2nd witness.” It closes with a distribution instruction naming Tim, Todd, Ken, and their spouses.

A private channel, circulating written prophecy — nearly a decade after the letter that filed the visions under “personal.”

Where the litigation stands — and what we are not claiming

These documents surfaced as Exhibits N and O in a civil lawsuit filed against Tim Ballard in November 2023 by five women alleging sexual misconduct — allegations Ballard categorically denies. The complaint alleges the blessings were used to cast Ballard as a chosen one beyond the reach of government and church authority. One plaintiff’s separate case was dismissed with prejudice in July 2025 on evidence-handling grounds — the judge was explicit that the ruling did not address the merits — and a federal judge dismissed the same plaintiff’s claims in June 2026, while five women’s claims remain in active litigation. No court has ruled on the truth of the underlying allegations, and this article makes no claim about them. Ballard has not been criminally charged. Thom Harrison is not a defendant in that suit and has never been charged with any crime; his signed 2021 blessing appears in the case as Exhibit N. In September 2023, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publicly withdrew President M. Russell Ballard’s association with Tim Ballard, citing unauthorized use of his name and activity regarded as “morally unacceptable.”

Our question is narrower than the lawsuit’s — and it doesn’t require believing anyone’s allegations. It requires only the letter Harrison wrote and the documents Harrison signed.

In 2014: my visions were personal; they direct no one. In 2021, over his signature: a written blessing directing the divine destiny of a public figure. In 2023: still circulating. And in November 2023, the book’s authorized fan site — which states that Harrison reviewed it before publication — was still actively defending Visions of Glory, with his participation. A faithful magazine, Public Square, put the tension plainly: outside that letter, the regret is hard to find.

Verdict: documented. The 2014 framing and the 2021–2023 record cannot both describe the same man’s practice. Readers can hold the letter in one hand and Exhibit N in the other.

The Record

Fourteen years, one book

From publication to the exhibits

Dec 2012

Visions of Glory is published. Cedar Fort releases the book; writer John Pontius dies of cancer two weeks later. The visionary is anonymous: “Spencer.”

Mar 23, 2014

The letter. After meeting with his stake president, Thom Harrison writes to priesthood leaders, discloses he is Spencer, and frames the visions as personal.

2015

Faithful scholars sound the alarm. FAIR publishes a physician-authored, page-by-page review documenting the book’s conflicts with scripture. Meridian Magazine publishes its own critique.

Oct 26, 2018

St. George. Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow meet at a Preparing a People conference — a circuit steeped in the book’s end-times vocabulary.

Sep–Oct 2019

The murders. JJ Vallow, Tylee Ryan, and Tammy Daybell are killed.

Jan 25, 2020

The pool. Kauai police serve Vallow an order to produce her children. Body-camera footage — later played at trial — shows Visions of Glory at her chair.

Dec 6, 2021

Exhibit N. A written Harrison blessing describes Tim Ballard’s prophesied destiny and promises his legal opposition will be frustrated.

May 2023

Vallow convicted. An Idaho jury convicts Lori Vallow on all counts. She is sentenced to life without parole.

Aug 5, 2023

Exhibit O. A “second witness” blessing voiced by Spear Fund president Ken Krogue circulates to a named private list.

Sep 15, 2023

The Church draws a line. The Church publicly withdraws President M. Russell Ballard’s association with Tim Ballard, citing unauthorized use of his name and conduct it calls morally unacceptable.

Nov 2, 2023

The exhibits go on file. Exhibits N and O are filed in a Utah civil suit. Harrison’s identity as Spencer re-enters the public record; the fan site he reviewed goes live in his defense.

Jun 2024

Daybell sentenced to death. An Idaho jury convicts Chad Daybell of all three murders and sentences him to death.

Jul 2025–Jun 2026

Litigation continues. Two dismissals of one plaintiff’s claims — on evidence-handling grounds, without ruling on the merits. Five women’s claims against Ballard remain active. Ballard denies all allegations.

The Findings

Five verdicts

Doctrinal consistency

On priesthood authority, on revelation for the Church, on the kingdoms of glory, on discerning spirits, and on the manner of the risen Christ — the book conflicts with the standard works at checkable, page-cited points.

VERDICT

Contradicted by scripture

Row six, on its own

Total demonic control of a person’s mind and universal freedom to repent cannot both be true. The book asserts both.

VERDICT

Internally contradictory

Prophecy fulfillment

Fourteen years. Zero of the book’s testable events. No dates were given — so no “failure” can be declared — but the vision’s own 2012 anchor recedes further every year.

VERDICT

Unfulfilled

Apostolic approval

The claim that an apostle encouraged publication rests on an unnamed friend who died eight years before the book appeared. It cannot be confirmed — by design or by accident, it is unfalsifiable.

VERDICT

Never verified

The letter against the exhibits

The 2014 letter frames the visions as personal and directive of no one. The 2021 and 2023 court exhibits — signed, written, circulated — show visionary authority actively exercised over another man’s life. Both documents are real. They do not describe the same practice.

VERDICT

Documented

Part Five

The test was always on the shelf

The most important fact in this investigation isn’t in the book. It’s in the books next to it.

Every test above was run with the four volumes already sitting on the shelf of nearly every Latter-day Saint home. No leaked audio. No expert panel. Doctrine and Covenants 42. Doctrine and Covenants 76. Second Nephi 2. Amos 3. The same test faithful reviewers applied in 2015 — years before a pool deck on Kauai made this book a piece of criminal-trial evidence.

Visions of Glory asked its readers for trust in an anonymous visionary. The canon asks for something harder, and safer: check.

The book by the pool made promises. The books on the shelf are how you test them.

We tested.

How we tested — methodology and standards

Doctrinal claims were evaluated against the Latter-day Saint standard works only: the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Page citations refer to the digital edition of Visions of Gloryand follow the pagination used in FAIR’s 2015 review. Event claims were scored against the public record as of August 2026. Court materials are cited to the First Amended Complaint and exhibits in WW et al. v. Ballard et al., Utah Third Judicial District, Civil No. 230907617. We treat Thom Harrison as sincere in his account of his own experiences; this investigation tests claims, not hearts. Allegations in active litigation are identified as allegations and carry the defendants’ denials. Comment was sought from Thom Harrison, the operators of JohnPontius.info, and The Spear Fund.

Questions People Ask

Frequently asked questions

What is Visions of Glory?
Visions of Glory (Cedar Fort, 2012) is a book by Latter-day Saint author John Pontius recounting the near-death experiences and end-times visions of an anonymous man called “Spencer.” It describes a future financial collapse, plague, nuclear attack, foreign occupation, and a cataclysm striking Salt Lake City — and became widely influential in Latter-day Saint prepper circles.
Who is “Spencer” in Visions of Glory?
In a March 23, 2014 letter to his priesthood leaders, Utah therapist Thom Harrison disclosed that he is “Spencer.” The book’s authorized fan site confirms the identification and states that Harrison reviewed the site before publication.
Was Visions of Glory really found with Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell?
Yes. Kauai Police Department body-camera footage from January 25, 2020 — played at Lori Vallow’s murder trial — shows the couple poolside as Vallow is served an order to produce her missing children. A copy of Visions of Glory is visible at her chair; Fox 10 investigative reporter Justin Lum identified the book.
Is Visions of Glory official doctrine of the Church?
No. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never published or endorsed the book. Its claims conflict with the standard works at multiple points — conflicts documented by faithful scholars, including a physician-authored FAIR review, back in 2015.
Has any prophecy in Visions of Glory come true?
No testable event described in the book has occurred. The book gives no dates, so its prophecies cannot be called “failed” — but fourteen years after publication, none of its major predicted events has taken place. Our verdict: unfulfilled.
What is the connection between Thom Harrison and Tim Ballard?
Court exhibits filed in a 2023 Utah civil lawsuit include a December 6, 2021 written blessing signed by Thom Harrison describing Tim Ballard’s prophesied destiny, and an August 5, 2023 “second witness” blessing voiced by Spear Fund president Ken Krogue. The lawsuit’s sexual-misconduct allegations are denied by Ballard; some claims have been dismissed on evidence-handling grounds without any ruling on the merits, and other claims remain in litigation.
Did an apostle approve Visions of Glory?
The claim has never been verified. The book attributes encouragement to an unnamed apostolic friend — identified in prepper circles as Elder Neal A. Maxwell, whom Harrison’s own 2014 letter describes as a member of his ward. Elder Maxwell died in 2004, eight years before publication, and no record confirms an endorsement. The only counsel Harrison himself documents — in that same letter — was Maxwell urging him not to interpret or read into the experiences, counsel Harrison concedes he should have followed.

Keep Reading

Where to go next

This page tested the book. The companion piece maps the rooms it travelled through.

The Visions of Glory Doomsday Network?

The companion investigation: the six organizations that carried this book, its author, and its vocabulary to an audience — and the test none of them ever ran.

The Satanic Panic File

The FBI, a $250,000 Utah task force, a two-year police inquiry and the courts all went looking for an organized ritual-abuse ring. What they found.

Documentation

Sources & further reading

  1. Gregory L. Smith, “Spencer’s Visions of Glory”, FAIR (2015).
  2. “Concerns about the book Visions of Glory”, Meridian Magazine.
  3. First Amended Complaint and Exhibits N–O, WW et al. v. Ballard et al., Utah Third Judicial District, Civil No. 230907617 (filed Nov 2, 2023).
  4. “Cousin sheds new light on Lori Vallow Daybell’s beliefs”, KSL.com.
  5. Kauai bodycam coverage, Fox 10 Phoenix / Justin Lum (May 2023).
  6. “Chad Daybell Case: Faith to Apostasy”, Public Square Magazine (2024).
  7. “About ‘Spencer’”, JohnPontius.info (Nov 2023).
  8. Church statement coverage, Deseret News (Sept 15, 2023).
  9. Fox 13, Deseret News, and KSL litigation-status coverage (July 2025–July 2026).
  10. “What Can We Learn from Visions of Glory?”, Times & Seasons (Jan 2026).

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