Truman Madsen on Spirit Memories

The late President Joseph F. Smith, in speaking of the youth of Jesus, and in speaking of His self-awareness, in a very classic passage called spirit memories, says this as pertaining to the preexistence:

He surely knew who He was before He entered mortality. He would have known beforehand the mission that He had been committed to fulfill. We read that He solemnly and voluntarily gave himself in the Council in Heaven, and that the Plan of Salvation was made in His presence, and that we all sanctioned it. He would have known at least some of those with whom he would live while in mortality, his parents, his forbears. He would have known those who were to be called as his disciples and apostles, and would have anticipated the main events in His life.

And then said Joseph F. Smith,

If He knew, so did we.

And in a measure, therefore, there is locked in us, but far more profoundly in Him, a burgeoning awareness, and we have glimpses of our own potential early on, reinforced by the spirit of prophecy and revelation in those who surround us. So Jesus grew, as the scriptures say, and grew in both wisdom and knowledge, and grew into the likeness of the mission which He had been given. All this came home to me in a vivid way as I stood on the Shores of the Galilee and contemplated the question of how it was that Jesus could stand, look out to two fishermen, call them by name, and say, "Follow me." And says the record, "They straightway left their nets." I was standing there with President Hugh B. Brown, and expressed amazement at this sudden response and explained, as I supposed, that probably the record has been radically telescoped and that likely Jesus would have had to know and teach and work with these men for a long period before that occurred, and made a similar reference to the experience of John who apparently instantly recognized Jesus for whom he was. President Brown smiled and then told the following incident from his own life. He said,

I once was walking down a street in Salt Lake and saw in the distance on the sidewalk another man. He looked familiar to me though I did not know him. And that impression of familiarity grew as we approached. When we were side by side, it was almost like an electric shock. Each of us took a few steps, stopped, turned around and stared at the other, and then went on our way. Years later, I learned that that was Orson F. Whitney, who became a member of the Council of the Twelve as I became a member of the Council of the Twelve.

So his explanation for such familiarity was rooted in premortal considerations. And it was Orson F. Whitney, of whom he spoke, who wrote the following words:

One day, . . . on the subject of spirit memories, I was led to indulge these reflections. Why are we drawn towards certain persons, and they to us, as if we had always known each other? Is it a fact we always have? Is there something after all in the abused term affinity, and is this the basis of it’s claim? We believe that the ties formed in this life will continue in the life to come. Why not believe that we had similar ties before we came, and that some of them, at least, have been resumed in this state of existence? After meeting someone whom I had never met before on earth, I’ve wondered, "Why does that person’s face seem so familiar?" More than once on hearing a noble sentiment expressed though unable to recall that I’d ever heard of it until then, I found myself in sympathy with it, and felt as if I had always known it. The same is true with some strains of music; they are like echoes of eternity. I do not assert pre-acquaintance in all such cases, but as one thought suggests another, these queries arise in the mind. When it comes to the gospel, I feel more positive. Why did the Savior say, "My sheep know my voice?" Did a sheep know the voice of a shepherd it had never heard before? They who love the truth and to whom it most strongly appeals, were they not acquainted with it in a previous life? I think so. I believe we knew the gospel before we came here, and that is what gives to it a familiar sound. And so in other apostle’s words, "By the power of the Spirit, through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home."

Surely, if these experiences occur to men, they occurred to the growing teenage Jesus Christ.

(Truman Madsen, Jesus Of Nazareth Vol. 2 cas. 2)