The blessings of the priesthood are not fortunetelling. Fortunetelling boils down to Satan’s doctrine because fortunetelling is predicting what is going to happen. That is predestination, and predestination is Satan’s doctrine, just the complete opposite from the blessings from the Lord. We have to earn the blessings [from the Lord] or we don’t get them. (Eldred G. Smith, “Lecture in Theology: Last Message Series” (Salt Lake Institute of Religion, April 30, 1971), p. 6, in R. Clayton Brough and Thomas W. Grassley, Understanding Patriarchal Blessings [Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1984], 32)
Too often people get the idea that when they go to the ordained patriarch, he gets some special power and that he can take out of an imaginary pigeonhole a special blessing that is for them. Some hold that he or any other patriarch at any time in their lives can reach in and get that one particular blessing and that it will be the same identical one, word for word, if a second one is given. That is not so.
In other words, that is putting it down to the point of predestination—that we are given the promise of what will come [without choice on the part of the individual or without regard to what the individual does or does not do]. There is no such thing as predestination in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Predestination is linked with fortunetelling. Fortunetelling and patriarchal blessings are as far apart as light and darkness, as black and white. There is no relationship between a patriarchal blessing and fortunetelling. Fortunetelling is a declaration of what will happen, which implies predestination, and predestination is Satan’s doctrine. (Eldred G. Smith, “What is a Patriarchal Blessing?” (The Instructor, Feb. 1962), p. 43, in ibid., 32)
These [patriarchal] blessings are possibilities predicated upon faithful devotion to the cause of truth. They must be earned. Otherwise they are but empty words. Indeed, they rise to their highest value when used as ideals, specific possibilities towards which we may strive throughout life. To look upon a patriarch as a fortuneteller is an offense to the Priesthood; the patriarch only indicates the gifts of the Lord would give us, if we labor for them. He helps us by pointing out the divine goal which we may enjoy if we pay the price. (John A. Widtsoe, “What is the Meaning of Patriarchal Blessings?” Address to stake presidencies of BYU stakes, 1965, p. 4, in R. Clayton Brough and Thomas W. Grassley, Understanding Patriarchal Blessings [Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1984], 32-33)
I say a patriarchal blessing is not fortunetelling, but many times the patriarch will pronounce upon the head of the individual some blessing based upon his faithfulness which may be fulfilled. I know of one or two cases of that kind where a brother has been blessed by the patriarch and told that he would become a member of the Council of the Twelve. Usually they don’t say that, no one says that, even if the patriarch felt that the chances are that a man would be called to the leading councils of the Church. [But], I want to tell you of this story of Alonzo A. Hinckley . . . who presided in the Deseret Stake for a number of years. He received a blessing, and in that blessing the patriarch said that the time would come when he would be ordained and placed in the Council of the Twelve. Brother Hinckley said to himself: “That’s an impossibility.” He took his blessing and put it away and said, “I became disappointed; I knew it couldn’t be fulfilled; I lost my faith in the patriarch, and my blessing did not serve me as it should have done.” Well [later], Alonzo A. Hinckley was called into the Council of the Twelve.
Patriarchs should be very careful in giving their blessings not to make extravagant expressions and to be conservative in what they say; but if the Lord does speak to them and tell them to say something, they have that inspiration, and it’s their right to say it. (Joseph F. Smith, “Address of Joseph Fielding Smith (BYU Church History and Philosophy 245), June 15, 1956, p. 5, in R. Clayton Brough and Thomas W. Grassley, Understanding Patriarchal Blessings [Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1984], 33)
