I was asked recently.
“Who can become a seer?”
I answered this: You could probably substitute “seer” for “prophet” in Moses’ lament: “Would to God all men were [seers]”. The purpose of seership is the same as any other gift of the Spirit: to acquire knowledge of truth. And, assuming “God giveth liberally to all men,” as James promised us, it would follow this was among the things He intended all men to experience.
Read the description of the conditions of post-mortal residence in the presence of God given in Section 130. The “seership” experience there is commonplace. The “sea of glass,” or earth on which they dwell is a great Urim and Thummim, as well as the “white stone” given to them. The result is that ALL occupants of that sphere are seers. Accordingly, we should assume that we obtain our first instructions here to prepare us for living there. Seership, being necessary for life there, is something we ought to expect to be included in the Lord’s tutelage while we are all here.
ALL of us are to “covet the best gifts” on the one hand; and on the other “there is no gift greater” than seership. (That’s Paul and Ammon being quoted.) It follows necessarily, therefore, that we should be seeking to have some experience with this gift here in mortality.
I really like this! I’m noticing that you are pointing out this same concept in your latest book, Come, Let Us Adore Him — namely, that the Lord is our prototype, and we should seek to and hope to experience what He has (short of performing the Atonement). In 3 Nephi 26:15 it says, “…having healed all their sick, and their lame, and opened the eyes of their blind and unstopped the ears of the deaf, and even had done all manner of cures among them, and raised a man from the dead, and had shown forth his power unto them,… And then one chapter later in 3 Nephi 27: 21 Jesus says to them, “…ye know the things that ye must bdo in my church; for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do…” So we should know that it is possible for us to follow His lead and be able to become like Him in doing these wonderful works also.
I just think that seership is something that we cannot take upon ourselves in mortality and is something that we would only be able to do if we are called to, and authorities aren’t going to do that. So I don’t know how it could be accomplished to seek after such a thing short of this order of things changing drastically, which I don’t see happening in the near future.