All the witnesses to the gold plates were fanatics and eccentrics who established their reputations long before Joe roped them in to “see” his plates and sign collective affidavits to be printed with his psuedopigrapha. I read and reread about how ridiculous these second sight claims are and how seemlessly the nature of the claims transitions in the historical record into a gold bible that needs translated. What on earth keeps this farce alive? If I had Martin Harris or David Whitmer over for supper, they might inform me that I have an undiscovered Spanish mine underneath my house or that Jesus Christ is hanging out in my attic at that very moment. They would tell me things unironically, I believe. They would really believe in the nonsense they were saying, wouldn’t they? But they aren’t insane. This is a cultural thing, not a mental illness thing. How does it never dawn on men like this that the things they are imagining aren’t really there? What is the nature of second sight? What drives people to behave like this? What keeps them so sure of their gifts even though they never find anything that they teach their children and their grandchildren to do likewise when the rest of the country has long forgotten about such eccentricities?

I understand DC 9 to be Joe lecturing Oliver Cowdry on how to use his own magical object to write bona fide portions of the Book of Mormon. I would say translate, but the plates were never present because they didn’t exist. These two loons imagined the plates were buried in the woods nearby and imagined they could divine the meaning of the writings on them by imagining Bible-like stories that couched Bible-like teachings which actually drew upon culture and literature with which they were familiar including the View of the Hebrews, the Great War Between, athe First Book of Napoleon, and many sermons of prominent preachers they knew. How do you do that and remain unconscious of your fraud? None of these spiritual-eyed miscreants lacked the ability to see the plates or learn about their contents long before joe got it into his mind to have them commit their testimonies to paper. That must have been what the revelation about the gift and power of god to translate was all about. They all had the gift to see whatever was buried anywhere. If Joe didn’t stake out his claim to the exclusive right to translate the Book of Mormon, methinks the Book of Mormon would have written itself easily, multiple times and not by him. It makes me wonder how many ideas for it were fed to him by his second-seeing company of friends who waited on its completion. God, they were probably all using their magical devices and spiritual eyes to guess what was about to come next. From this stream of unwitting creative input, I could see an intelligent mind with a vivid imagination and a gift for second sight performances easily producing the text of the Book of Mormon in 80 or 90 working days, after having fleshed out the main plot and themes in his mind over the previous three years. It’s ridiculous to think he never referenced any material, I mean he copied large portions of the the KJV, errors and all, exactly as his family bible contained them into the Book of Mormon.

But the concept of second sight is so weird to me. How were these people so credulous? What made them think that if they found an exotic rock or a normal rock in an novel way, they could toss it in a hat and see any corner of the real universe as they wished?

I think he was just lying to dupe and scam people. I don't think he really believed he was seeing what he claimed to be seeing. From all accounts, it is likely that he was somewhere on the spectrum between sociopath and psychopath. Using people and exploiting gullibility was his forte.

The other guys? I don't know how sincere they were. Remember there was no TV and no Hollywood back then, so they entertained each other with stories. Playing around with magical ideas like "second sight" must have been quite entertaining. And just like you have to suspend disbelief now in order to enjoy most Hollywood movies (many of which would otherwise be too absurd too enjoy if you weren't willing to shut down the part of your brain that insists on pointing out all of the ridiculous impossibilities in the narrative), you probably had to be willing to suspend disbelief back then too in order to enjoy the full entertainment value of magical beliefs.

There indeed were many sober, rational people back then who could--and did--see right through the nonsense. But, for the most part, they did not become part of the historical record of Mormonism because they refused to participate in the nonsense in any way. So we are just left with the scammers, the nutjobs and the suckers... and the historical record of their various doings and comings and goings.

He was also raised for it. Lucy Mack Smith initially groomed Alvin to be a prophet, but Joseph faithfully learned all the tricks.

I really, really, really want there to be a pile of $100 bills six feet high in front of me.
I want so badly to believe it's there.
If I close my eyes, and pretend really, really hard, I can sort of see "in my mind's eye" the stack. Just sitting there. Waiting to be spent.

Now, I open my eyes, and...


Damn. Didn't work again.

:(

"What made them think that if they found an exotic rock or a normal rock in an novel way, they could toss it in a hat and see any corner of the real universe as they wished?"

They likely came to the conclusion that they could look into rocks because a lot of people were into the occult back in the 1700s. Magic was very common going back into medieval Europe. Even one of my ggggg grandmothers from Denmark was a witch. Divining rods were used and are still being used even up to today here in America. Currently Paganism and Wica is on the rise all over the civilized West. There must be something to all this hocus pocus, right? or no one would be doing it.

Michael Quinn wrote an excellent book called the Magical World View and Mormonism, that can be read as a beginning book to introduce skeptics to basic harmless witchcraft.

Dispensing with the possibility that the BoM is of supernatural origin, who wrote it?

Your question, Cold Dodger (welcome back!) assumes that the BoM was written by JS alone, and that he successfully conned the others into believing in its authenticity. Yet textual criticism suggests that various others wrote portions, and opens up the discussion of who wrote which parts. If that be the case, then Crowder and others were co-conspirators, and not simple dupes.

But to respond to your premise, Cold-Dodger, that they were the victims of a con job. A con artist is a salesman, after all: he sells to what the mark really, deeply, wants, a combination of financial gain, power, prestige, etc. Throw in exotic religious mystery, and you have an appealing mix. JS was already well practiced in mixing these elements by getting people to believe that there was hidden treasure on their land. If JS was the one author (which I doubt), he knew how to go about it.

For my money (gasp!), the issues is not how did JS do it, but who were the original collaborators, and who were the dupes. I'll throw in that Martin Harris was probably a dupe.

Last thought: Once people are scammed, they are loathe to admit to others, and probably themselves, that they were suckers. And thus the fraud is perpetuated.

Edit: Full disclosure:: I am a never-Mo, and in no ways an informed scholar on these matters.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2019 11:24AM by caffiend.

Second sight, now being resurrected by Russ.

When I saw the title I thought of this...

Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight.

It's from an old 80s cartoon called Thundercats.

The leader of the Thundercats called Lion-O looks through a cat's eye stone set in the hilt of his sword to see things in other places or in the future.

He has sight beyond sight.

Well, you know the answer. Now get busy and pray and study to increase your lacking faith and understanding. All will be made clear if you obey.

People always have and always will fall for scams. There are lots of folks right now being suckered by all sorts ridiculous, obviously bogus things because they want whatever it is the scams are promising.