Otherwise known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Joseph Smith obviously had NPD (narcissism) as has been discussed here before. NPD is usually caused by trauma in childhood. The odds of JS having a dissociated identity are much higher in that case.

My own experience with a particular DID acquaintance gave me some insight into Joseph. In this case, the person had one personality that was an angel and another that was a devil. The angelic personality was constantly having to deal with the mess created by the demonic "alter". She created persecution fantasies to explain why people would turn on her for no explicable reason. She would remember things that never happened. But you know what? People always believed her stories.

This seems an awful lot like Joseph Smith. It solves the paradox of him being both a religious genius and a poon hound. It explains the fantasies of persecution, memories of a vision that nobody could corroborate, and an ability to make anyone believe anything.

Joseph Smith as a fractured personality makes sense. It makes it easier for me to appreciate the good parts of the church because there was a good part to Joseph. It also means that Mormonism as a religion is a product of what we would call mental illness.

I wonder if Mormonism as a culture creates dissociated identities to some degree. It causes one to live in a fantasy, remaining fixated in late adolescence at the moral development stage. That happens when moral autonomy is hijacked by the church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2023 07:04AM by bradley.

That disorder is exceedingly rare. I think that JS was a garden-variety narcissist, and may well have been a sociopath. Sociopathy is estimated to occur in about 4% of the population, and it often flies under the radar because people with sociopathy learn how to blend in. In popular terms, he was a con artist.

MPD can be caused an early-age exposure to severe pain; (as per CIA MKULTRA documented cases), as in his primitive leg surgery at age 8? The mind can fragment and dissociate into multiple personalities. The painful surgery itself could have been the trigger...IMO. Anything beyond that might need further medical or historical documentation...Yeah, he was all over the place.