A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher

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Forthcoming

by Chad L. Nielsen

Forthcoming

Book Description:

A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher explores the extraordinary life of an early Latter-day Saint whose faith was shaped by visions, spiritual encounters, and unwavering conviction. Born into the religious ferment of early nineteenth-century America, Zerah Pulsipher experienced what he believed were visitations from angels, confrontations with unseen powers, and personal revelations that guided his conversion to Mormonism. From a defining vision in his barn that confirmed the Book of Mormon to a lifetime immersed in an “enchanted” spiritual world, Pulsipher’s story offers a rare window into how ordinary believers understood heaven, hell, angels, and demons as active forces in daily life.

At the same time, this deeply researched biography situates Pulsipher within the gritty realities of the Latter-day Saint pioneer experience. As a president of the Seventy, missionary, migrant leader, and family patriarch, he helped translate prophetic vision into lived reality—organizing mass migrations, enduring persecution, navigating plural marriage, and building communities across the American frontier. Written with both empathy and critical rigor, A Barn Full of Angels presents Pulsipher in all his complexity: faithful yet flawed, visionary yet pragmatic. The result is a compelling “history from the middle” that illuminates the spiritual imagination, institutional growth, and human costs of early Mormonism through the life of one remarkable man.