DAN VOGEL DISCUSSES THE SPALDING/RIGDON THEORY

[_marg]

Dan,

I don't want to distract you from replying to Ted Chandler, but there is something I do want to comment on.

You wrote to Dale: Apparently, the only reason you suggest Pratt lied about the circumstances of Rigdon's conversion to Mormonism as well as his own is because your thesis demands it. Arguing that early Mormon leaders kept polygamy secret and therefore kept Spalding secret as well is not evidence. It's wishful thinking. You must give us reason for believing Pratt lied in this specific case. If you can't impeach Pratt's testimony, your theory that Rigdon was involved with Smith before December 1830 is in trouble.

Dan, the fact that Mormon leaders were able to keep secrets such as polygamy is evidence. It’s evidence that secret were able to be kept and therefore it’s not unreasonable to carry the reasoning further based on that evidence and assume the possibility that other secrets which may not be fully appreciated were kept.

You say to Dale “You must give us reason for believing Pratt lied in this specific case. If you can't impeach Pratt's testimony, your theory that Rigdon was involved with Smith before December 1830 is in trouble.”

Dale gives you your answer here, that is he offers reasoning why one should not necessarily trust everything Pratt said in particular having anything to do related to the Rigdon/Spalding theory.

Dale explained: "I was concentrating more upon the fact that he (Pratt) was a partisan with authority to speak for the Church on this
matter. When you turn on your TV and hear a lawyer speaking for his client (even if the client is a church)
do you automatically conclude that you are receiving the full and unvarnished truth?

And if that same lawyer were later to take the witness stand, and there provide testimony exhonorating both
himself and his client, would you not hope that he would be carefully cross-examined by an opposing attorney?

I said before that I do not view my own work on this topic as being the same as prosecutor, judge and jury in
a legal case, and I do not present my findings and provisional conclusions with that same degree of precision
and adversarial process. But I will say that I see Pratt acting somewhat like a partisan lawyer-spokesman whose
main concern is in defending his client and himself -- and not in his disclosing facts harmful to his case. "

Dan your approach lacks good critical thinking. You may have lots of knowledge of facts but you do not seem to apply good reasoning to them. For example, you seem to start off with a presumption that all Book of Mormon witnesses are telling the truth; that all people who were at the top of the Mormon organization in its early days, who were influential were all telling the truth. But there is NO reason that particular presumption should rest, in fact the opposite is the case. If you want to argue this presumption you need to establish that all those involved in this hoax which involved claims to angels appearing, God speaking, Jesus appearing, historical knowledge of America, divine guidance in translation of non existent plates ...were telling the truth. The presumption Dan is that they were not truthful. And anyone associated with the initial stages in this organization who had a vested interest, one must be skeptical of anything they say. The presumption Dan is that all those involved were dishonest and to overturn that you have to establish why anyone should assume they were truthful.

As far as Pratt goes, if he carried on duties in the church as spokesman against the Spalding/Rigdon theory it means he had a vested interest in saying anything which would lead away from a conclusion that Spalding and Rigdon were involved. He’s not some disinterested participant. And he does have something to gain being as his employment is with the church. It is crucial that one is able to apply reasoning to evidence, Dan. Evidence just doesn’t stand as is, it needs to be evaluated and reasoning applied to it and from there probable theories drawn.

[_Uncle Dale]

As far as Pratt goes, if he carried on duties in the church as spokesman against the Spalding/Rigdon theory
it means he had a vested interest in saying anything which would lead away from a conclusion that Spalding
and Rigdon were involved...

I'd like to call attention again to an assertion that I trace back to the pen of Sidney Rigdon:

"Joseph Smith... taught those over whom he had influence, that they ought to lie for him; and Parley P. Pratt,
who has, since Smith was cut off, shared a similar fate himself, and for the same cause, that of transgression,
had the boldness once to say that they ought to lie for Brother Joseph; and it was a fact that he and others
did so on the grand scale.

http://sidneyrigdon.com/books/Appl1863.htm#pg52a

Sidney Rigdon, et al.
"An Appeal to the Latter Days Saints" p. 52
(Philadelphia, self pub., 1863)

Similar claims can be found in Rigdon's post-Nauvoo Messenger and Advocate, as well as here and there
in his numerous "revelations" (see the Stephen Post Collection in the LDS Church Archives, microfilm at BYU)

Although I do not believe Rigdon over Pratt in most cases, I think that these claims from the Rigdonites are
laced with more than a little irony --- that we are cautioned not to believe Pratt, because he lies in the name
of Joseph Smith, or in the name of the Church, or in the name of the Lord, or in the name of his own honor.

Based upon the old saying, that it "takes one to know one;" and based upon the fact that Rigdon lost his own
Mormon Elder's license for "lying in the name of the Lord," I would at least say Rigdon would know a holy lie
when he saw one.

In another place, Rigdon once said: "lies become holy things in the hands of such excessive piety,
particularly when they are graced with a few Reverends; but the days have gone by, when people are
to be deceived by these false glossings of Rev'd sanctions; the intelligent part of the communities,
of all parts of the country, know that Rev'ds are not more notorious for truth than their neighbors."
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL ... htm#rigdon

Again the irony here is palpable -- Rigdon being essentially the head of an entire church when he wrote
those words (Joseph Smith having just barely returned to Mormon protection after escaping from custody).

None of which overturns Dan's odd preoccupation with giving the old Mormon leaders the benefit of the
doubt, when their public honesty is at stake ----- but I thought it worth sharing here, all the same.

Dale

[_marg]

Dan,

One other example in which I find your critical evaluation on this Pratt issue rather weak. I'm not going to quote or get the exact details but off the top of my head..my understanding is that Pratt sold his farm and went with his wife on a journey to preach and visit relatives. And I believe at the point of starting out he had been associating with Rigdon. So he goes on this journey along some waterway (I believe) and makes a pit stop by himself and has his wife go ahead of him alone..though I believe he escorted her quite a few miles. I believe you said something along the line that Pratt gave his reason for this pit stop..as the spirit had moved him to stop...and that this reasoning he gave, you accept because you have no reason to doubt Pratt.

Well what husband goes on a journey with a wife, in pretty much the wilderness..and has her continue on alone..even if a feeling/spirit had moved him? Doesn't it seem strange to you that he apparently didn't want his wife with him? Why does she go on alone? What reason did he give for that? Doesn't it seem as if he had business or something to do, which he'd rather she be not present for? So he makes this pit stop and just happens to come across the Book of Mormon, just happens to be converted, just happens to go back to Rigdon with the Book of Mormon. Is my understanding wrong in this? Is my skepticism too extreme? I appreciate you seem to have a problem with skepticism ..arguing that it's a slippery slope leading to nihilism...but do you not see there is good reason to be skeptical of Pratt's actions and his justification for them?

[_Dan Vogel]

Vogel's Response to Chandler's Reply

This a lengthy response, but Chandler's method of making lists without analysis forces his respondent to unpack his assumptions and misapprehensions. Hopefully, if Chandler wishes to respond to this, or even if he plans to publish more of his research on the internet, this critique will motivate him to expend more effort in his presentation of arguments and evidence.

Introduction

Dan Vogel has offered a critique of my work on a message board at mormondiscussions.com.

Actually, I'm not finished with my critique. I have only posted Part 1.

1. Chandler's response to Skousen.

2. Chandler's evidence of visual copying from O-MS.

3. Chandler's conclusions from preceding evidence.

4. Chandler's reply to critics of the preceding evidence.

In Part 1, I showed that Chandler's response to Skousen's evidence for hearing mistakes was inadequate. Chandler's response to this part of my critique is still inadequate. Chandler focused on my discussion of dittography and haplography instead.

In Part 2, I will show that Chandler's evidence from malformed letters and nonsensical words does not prove the scribes were copying from a proto-BOM MS, but rather they were rushed to keep up with dictation.

In Part 3, I will show that Chandler's conclusions based on malformed letters and nonsensical words are incorrect.

In Part 4, I will show that Chandler's reply to his critics is inadequate.

I pause from my course to reply to Chandler's response to my Part 1.

Chandler's Response to Vogel

Vogel states: "Unfortunately, Chandler's response to Skousen is based on a very poor understanding of O-MS, as well as the mechanics of Skousen's transcription. ... His evidence for visual copying is almost exclusively from misspelled words, or rather malformed letters and slips of the pen, which were later corrected."
So, apparently Vogel's position is that Skousen doesn't really mean what he says. When Skousen explains a symbol as "x has been overwritten by y," or another symbol as "the text may be x or y, with x preferred or intended," we are to understand that x and y do not represent two different letters but two attempts by the scribe to form the same letter. Skousen is not talking about spelling errors where one letter is mistaken for another. Unfortunately for Vogel, this is not what Skousen actually says. For example, Skousen states: "The original manuscript is not letter-for-letter perfect, but evidence suggests that it contained relatively few errors (excluding spelling variants)" (p. 6). Then in explaining overwriting, Skousen says: "If the text is changed or a whole letter is overwritten, I specify both the original text and the correcting text, separated by a vertical bar" (p. 22). Skousen is talking about spelling variants and replacing one letter by another, not merely correcting a slip of the pen. In fact, Skousen uses other symbols to designate ways in which a letter has been malformed. It seems to me that it is Vogel who doesn't understand the mechanics of Skousen's transcription.

Chandler conflates Skousen's "few errors (excluding spelling variants)" (from p. 6) with his method of dealing with the correction of "whole letters" (from p. 22). Skousen's example on page 22 is a slip of the pen. In the sentence following Chandler's quote, Skousen explains--

In 1 Nephi 2:11 ..., Oliver Cowdery first started to write foolish with Florida, but then overwrote his partially written l with an o:

26 ... because of the f{l(-)|o}olish imma{g}ionations of

Nowhere does Skousen call this a misspelling, although loosely speaking it might be called that. Chandler thinks that a letter can only be malformed by leaving out or adding a stroke. But a malformed letter can also look like another letter--for example, a malformed "r" can look like an "n", or visa versa. Chandler himself acknowledged that

There are resemblances between the ways in which Oliver forms his "r," "n," and "v."

Here's an example from the Oliver Cowdery Letterbook--



The word is "present". Note the similarity between the "r" and "n", as well as between the "r" and the "s". Note also how his "p" has a high riser and resembles an "f".


So, when Cowdery (and other scribes) rushes to keep up with Joseph Smith's dictation, he may write malformed letters and, due to the similarity between his "r" and "n", he may write words that look like the following two examples--

[Skousen's symbols= {x|y} for x has been overwritten by y]

Chandler: the Lord hath concecrated this lard=land unto me (165:29)
Skousen: the Lord hath concecrated this la{r|n}[d] unto me (165:29)

Chandler: the tempest began to be exceding sone=sore (147:25)
Skousen: the tempest [be]gan to be exceding so{n|r}e (147:25)

So, although the words look like "lard" and "sone", Cowdery intended to write "land" and "sore". If I were quoting this part of the MS, I would have simply ignored the doctoring of letters, but what does an exacting transcriber like Skousen do when he wants to show every stroke a scribe makes? When Cowdery's "r" and "n" look so similar, he has to decide if the malformed "r" is still an "r" or looks more like Cowdery's "n". So, for example, Skousen will transcribe "land" and "sore" in the following two ways when an overwrite has occurred--

la{r|n}d or la{n}d
so{n|r}e or so{r}e

In the first instance r has been overwritten by n, or visa versa.
In the second instance n has been overwritten by n, or visa versa.

These are examples of where the malformed letters can make nonsensical words, but what if the similarity in lettering makes sense either way? Skousen handles those situations in a different way, as explained on pages 18-19--

Sometimes when a letter (or group of letters) is difficult to read, more than one reading is possible. Again I use square brakets to represent this difficulty with legibility. For instance, if a letter could be either x or y, I represent this as [x | y]. A vertical bar separates the two possibilities. The reader should assume that the x, the first reading, is the intended or most probable reading. For instance, in 1 Nephi ... there are two examples of the past-tense verb bare which could also be read as bore , although bare (with a capital B ) seems to have been scribe 2's intended spelling:

26 B[a|o]re record & they B[a|o]re record according to the

The subtle distinction between Skousen's use of {x|y} and [x|y] was lost on Chandler. The firs involves overwritten letters, while the second is an ambiguous reading. Imagine if Skousen tried to blend the two methods to indicate what Chandler believed should have been Skousen's method with malformed letters.

Chandler: the Lord hath concecrated this lard=land unto me (165:29)
Skousen: the Lord hath concecrated this la{r|n}[d] unto me (165:29)
Skousen?: the Lord hath concecrated this la{[n|r]|n}[d] unto me (165:29)

Chandler: the tempest began to be exceding sone=sore (147:25)
Skousen: the tempest [be]gan to be exceding so{n|r}e (147:25)
Skousen?: the tempest [be]gan to be exceding so{[r|n]|r}e (147:25)

So far as I can tell, Skousen does not use the third almost unreadable representation. With malformed letters, Skousen is apparently going solely on appearance because there is no ambiguity in meaning.

Chandler's logic doesn't make sense. Technically, these are not misspelled words. A misspelled word would be something like "verry" or "Citty". These are nonsensical words. Chandler has an odd notion of what a scribe does when copying from another MS. What scribe copies letter by letter nonsensical words? Typically, a scribe reads the text and writes down what he reads, not what he sees, unless it is an unfamiliar word like Zarahamla, curelom, or Cumorah. So, a scribe copies word for word, not letter for letter. If a word is difficult to read, the scribe will use the context to decipher the word. If an error is made, it would involve substituting the right word for an incorrect similar-looking word, examples of which Skousen has given (see my previous post dealing with Skousen's evidence for dictation).

Rather than imagining scribes mindlessly copying letter for letter in a badly written Spalding-Rigdon text, even words they knew how to spell, a more reasonable explanation is that Cowdery's malformed "n" looks like an "r", so Skousen transcribed it as an "r". Of course, Chandler has no idea what the postulated proto-BOM MS looked like, but we do know that some of Cowdery's letters--even under ideal conditions--look very similar to one another, which Chandler himself admited. So, it would seem an obvious place to look for problems in O-MS is with Cowdery's penmanship. Besides, the presence of nonsensical words cannot tell us that the scribes were copying from another MS. Hence, Chandler's argument is a non sequitur . He doesn't take the time to show readers what the evidence means and how exactly his evidence from "misspellings" is supposed to demonstrate what he is trying to prove. If he had, perhaps he would have realized the weakness of his evidence before publishing it on the internet. (I will return to this matter in Part 3 of my critique of Chandler's methodology.)

Chandler Fails to Respond to Skousen's Evidence ... Again!

Vogel's discussion of Skousen's examples amounts to little more than opining that Skousen's explanations are "more likely" than mine. This a rather poor argument and seems to depend on accepting Vogel's position that the manuscript was dictated.

Rather, it was Chandler who was opining and speculating some far fetched scenarios to explain away Skousen's evidence, and ignoring one argument altogether. He seems to think that any alternative explanation is equally likely simply because he can make one up while at the same time ignoring eyewitness testimony. His alternate explanations require us to also accept the unlikely, less parsimonious, and unfounded assertion that not only Oliver Cowdery, but two other unidentified scribes, as well as Martin Harris and Emma Smith were involved in a conspiracy with Joseph Smith. It would also mean that those who testified to Joseph Smith's method of dictation were either lying, or Joseph Smith and his scribes in Fayette managed to keep the true method hidden from the Whitmer family. So, Skousen's evidence is consistent with eyewitness testimony, and Chandler's is not.

Moreover, Skousen's examples of hearing problems are typical source-critical methodology, whereas Chandler's evidence from malformed letters is not, which is why I brought up dittography and haplography. Chandler believes his ad hoc rationalizations are equally likely as Skousen's evidence for dictation, but he neglects to defend them or to respond to my criticisms. Simply asserting that I'm "opining" won't cut it. It's not enough to come up with imaginative alternative explanations for Skousen's evidence, Chandler must come up with equal or better explanations. Otherwise, how can he disagree with my criticisms of his work if he has such a low standard for evidence?

Dittographic Evidence from O-MS?

Vogel declares that there is no evidence in the O-MS of either dittography or haplography. This is incorrect. I haven't gone through the entire manuscript, but here are a few examples.

Dittoggraphic evidence is certainly a much better approach than the appearance of nonsensical words. But the mere presence of repetition is not automatic evidence of visual copying of a MS. While it is correct to refer to unintentional repetition as dittography, the kind that's used to demonstrate visual copying has to be more definitive and less ambiguous than those listed by Chandler. It is to this latter type of dittography that I referred. This is clear from the context of the above statement, which Chandler neglected to quote. In Part 1 of my critique where I discussed Skousen's evidence for hearing mistakes in O-MS, I said:

4. Cowdery mishears him for them in Alma 55:8 and Ether 8:17

O-MS: & behold they saw him <a> comeing & they hailed him but he sayeth unto <him> them not

Chandler asserts: "In the first him/them example, the word "him" occurs twice in the text before the incorrect occurrence; therefore, Oliver could simply have become confused while looking back and forth between an original text and his copy." Of course, it's possible that the scribe was about to start a dittograph but caught himself before the next word. So, it's not a definitive dittograph either. But it is well known problem in dictation, so Skousen's explanation seems more likely. Skousen: "One particular difficulty for the scribe occurred whenever Joseph Smith pronounced unstressed 'em (for either them]/i] or [i]him)." (68)

The explanation Chandler here gives is what he now calls a dittograph. If it is a dittograph, the scribe caught himself immediately before copying the next word or words--thus, "him a comeing". That would better evidence for a dittograph. Also, in a dittograph, one looks for a reason the scribe's eye jumped back to the first "him" like the same word appearing before both occurrences of "him", which it doesn't. So, this is not an example of a definitive dittograph; in fact, it is not likely. Thus, Skousen's explanation seems more likely. But the main point here is that Chandler should have learned something from this statement, but evidently he chose to ignore it and present other similar situations a dittographic evidence.

Another statement I made about dittography occurred in my initial presentation of Skousen's evidence for oral dictation of O-MS, where I said:

While it's certainly possible to have a repeated word in oral dictation from false starts, other types of dittography are clearly from the scribe's eye skipping lines. Dittographic evidence is absent from the O-MS, but frequently appears in P-MS.

It is certainly possible to have dittographs in dictation. When the person dictating stops to think, and recommences by repeating the last word or words. Of the two kinds of dittographs I describe, it is the latter that I claim is absent from O-MS. Admittedly, I haven't read every page of Skousen's transcription, but of the kinds of evidence Chandler could bring forward to prove O-MS was copied and not dictated, the latter type dittograph would be the best. However, Chandler might have been confused when I included both types of dittographs in my examples from P-MS. I did this because we know it was visually copied. So we know all dittographs are the result of the scribe's eye skipping to the wrong place in O-MS. However, when one is looking for proof, the standards are higher. Remember, the definition of dittography I gave was

The error of parablepsis (a looking by the side) is caused by homoeoteleuton (a similar ending of lines). Dittography is when a word or group of words is picked up a second time by the scribe and as a result the same line is copied twice when it only appears once.

http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/dittography.html

The key here is not just the repetition of a word, but showing that the scribe's eye skipped back to the same word or words, which causes the scribe to copy a line twice. An example of a more definitive dittograph would be 2 Ne. 25:25--

[symbols= <word> for strikeouts; \word/ for above the line insertions; italicized words are the repeated words]

the Jews do understand the things of the Prophets, & there is none other People that understand the things <of the Prophets> spoken unto the Jews ... (P-MS, 211:29-30)

Here, apparently, after writing the second "understand the things", the scribe's eye skipped to the first occurrence of the phrase, which caused the scribe to write "of the Prophets" twice--although the canceled phrase fits the repetitive style of the Book of Mormon. The ideal dittograph would be where the scribe apparently does not catch the mistake, as in the following imaginary situation using the above as an example--

the Jews do understand the things of the Prophets, & there is none other People that understand the things of the Prophets & there is none other People that understand the things spoken unto the Jews ...

Although dittography is better evidence than Chandler's evidence from malformed letters and nonsensical words, it is not without problems. Most dittographs are not ideal and pose interpretive challenges of their own. For those who remember the exchange between Brent Metcalfe and Brian Hauglid and Wil Schryver, the issue of dittographic evidence was hotly debated, with Schryver using the weakest examples of dittography to counter Brent's evidence for dictation. There, too, Schryver overstated his dittographic evidence and ignored the strength of hearing problems. Needless to say, none of Chandler's examples fall into the category of definitive dittograph.

Chandler's Examples of Dittography

Dittography:
[1] we (we) went down to the land of our inheritance (68:12-13)
[2] out of (out of) captivity (70-71:54, 1)
[3] the spirit said unto me again (to me) slay him (72:31-32)
[4] ishmael and his wife (and) (his Wife) and his three other daugters(83:12-13)
[5] they did give thanks unto the lord their god and they did (give) offer (thanks) sacrifice (87:24-25)
[6] after that i had traveld for the space (for) of menny hours (88:44)
[7] the river of water (of) (water of water) a great and spesious bilding (91:48-49)
[8] a prophet which should come before the masiah (whi) to prepare the way (96:33-34)
[9] the fall there of (there of) was exceding great (107:16-17)
[10] of great worth unto the gentiles & the (gen) Angel of the Lord said (116:20)
[11] wherefore the final (fi) state of the souls (131:38)
[12] they being lead the Lead their God (141:28)
[13] to the Queen informing her that the (Qu) King had been slain (395:20)

--(numbers added for convenience)

Half are simple immediate repetitions (1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 11), which can happen in dictation and are therefore ambiguous. With one possible exception (5), none are preceded by similar words that can cause the scribe's eye to skip back. Several are one or two words, or even part of a word, which Chandler assumes were near-dittographs due the scribe's eye skipping back (for no apparent reason) but catching the mistake on the first word or two or partial word (3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13). This isn't at all apparent. For example,

[3] the spirit said unto me again (to me) slay him (72:31-32)

If this were a visual mistake, one would expect it to read: "unto me again unto me". Because it doesn't fit a visual explanation well, speculation as to how it could fit a dictation scenario is warranted. Perhaps Joseph Smith paused after "unto me again ..." And then, either intentionally or unintentionally repeated himself without "again".

[5] they did give thanks unto the lord their god and they did (give) offer (thanks) sacrifice (87:24-25)

Skousen: ... they did give thank(s)
unto the lord their god and they did {[giv<%e%>] | offer} {<%tha%>nk<%s%> | sacrific}e and of
-fer burnt ofrings unto him (87:24-26)

[symbols= <%x%> for x canceled by erasure; {x | y} for y written over x; [x] for x partially legible]

1 Ne. 7:22. Perhaps Chandler's best example, but problematic. However, Chandler has left out the end of the sentence, which is important because it creates a repetition of the word "offer". While the phrase "offer sacrifice and burnt offerings" occurs in the Book of Mormon several times (1 Ne. 5:9; 7:22; Mos. 2:3), the phrase "offer sacrifice and offer burnt ofrings" does not. In copying this passaged into P-MS, Cowdery deleted the second "offering".)

In his analysis of this passage, Skousen states:

A tapering off of the ink flow for offerings (spelled ofrings) suggests that scribe 3 quit at that point to make a messy correction of his conflated text. He first erased the repeated "give thanks" (with considerable smearing) and then overwrote it with "offer sacrifice". The problem here is that he apparently neglected to delete the now-repeated verb offer. ...

There is considerable internal evidence that scribe 3's repeated offer ... is highly unexpected.

--(Skousen, vol. 4, Pt. 1, 155-56)

If Skousen is correct that the scribe reached "ofrings" before correcting the mistake, a dittograph did not occur since more words would have been wrong. Assuming the scribe did not notice the mistake until the end of the sentence, the dittography would have read as follows--

they did give thanks unto the lord their god and they did give thanks unto the lord their god and they did offer sacrifice and burnt offerings [unto him]

So it's not a typical dittograph. Hence, Skousen calls it a "conflation". Recreating the sequence of emendation is difficult, but Skousen doesn't seem to have an explanation for the appearance of the second "offer". Cowdery's deleting it was undoubtedly based on the awkward reading, but only when "give thanks" was erased and replaced with "offer sacrifice" did the second "offer" become awkward. Given the Book of Mormon's repetitive style and Joseph Smith's impromptu dictation, it is entirely possible that the original more difficult reading was just as Joseph Smith dictated it. Thus--

"they did give thanks unto the lord their god and they did give thanks and offer burnt ofrings unto him"

[6] after that i had traveld for the space (for) of menny hours (88:44)

Skousen: after that i had tr{u | a}ve{<%d%> | l}ed(-) {r |f}or the space <f^or> \of/ me(n)
[-]ny hours ... (88:44)

Chandler's transcription obscures an important fact. Note that "for" was canceled and "of" inserted above the line, rather than on the line following the canceled word (in Skousen's transcription the "of" is actually above "for"). This means the error wasn't caught immediately and wasn't the result of a dittograph. If a dittograph had been committed and not immediately caught, one would expect it to read before emendation:

after that i had traveld for the space for the space of menny hours (88:44)

[8] a prophet which should come before the masiah (whi) to prepare the way (96:33-34)

Chandler presumes the "whi" was a near-dittograph of the preceding "which", but the scribe caught himself before finishing the word, which is difficult to do when the scribe is looking away from the source to write the word. There is also no similar words to explain why the scribe's eye went to the wrong place.

[10] of great worth unto the gentiles & the (gen) Angel of the Lord said (116:20)

Skousen: of great worth un(-)to the gentiles & the {<%gen(-)%> | An}ge
-l of the Lord said ...

Here the scribe wrote "ge" and part of an "n", then erased it. Then wrote "An" over the erasure and finished "ge-l". Did the scribe anticipate the wrong word Joseph Smith would say? Or did the scribe's eye skip back three words? How does a scribe catch himself before completing the word when looking away from the MS? There are no words to confuse the scribe.

[12] they being lead the Lead their God (141:28)

1 Ne. 17:30. This is not a dittograph, but accidentally writing "Lead" instead of "Lord" having just written "lead". Since it wasn't caught and corrected, if it were a dittograph, it should have read:

they being lead the Lead the Lord their God

[13] to the Queen informing her that the (Qu) King had been slain (395:20)

Skousen: to the {Q}ueen informing here that the <%[Q]u%> [K]ing had bee[n] ...

Alma 47. There is nothing to indicate why the scribe's eye would skip back. Perhaps the scribe incorrectly anticipated the next word. Again, a partial word is difficult to explain as a copying error.

Haplographic Evidence from O-MS?

Haplography is harder to detect since it is an accidental omission of a phrase, which doesn't always disturb meaning. As defined,

... haplography occurs when text is missing owing to lines which have a similar ending in a manuscript.

http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/haplography.html

None of Chandler's examples follow this pattern. Just because the scribe appears to jump ahead of what is eventually written doesn't mean he is copying from a proto-BOM MS. He may have simply fallen behind in the dictation. One has to show that there was a reason his eye skipped to the wrong place, as in the example I provided from P-MS--

Page 165: therefore the king couldD not confer the kingDom upon him; \neither would Aaron take upon him the kingdom/ neither was any of the Sons of Mosiah willing to take upon them the kingDom

Here Hyrum Smith missed a phrase because his eye skipped to the next neither. Cowdery restored the lost phrase.

This kind of visual error is difficult to detect without an original to compare or an above the line insertion by a proof reader. If Cowdery proofed P-MS against O-MS, could we not expect him to have proofed O-MS against the Spalding-Rigdon MS? Regardless, there is no evidence for haplography in O-MS.

Again, none of Chandler's examples fall into this category.


Chandler's Examples of Haplography from O-MS

Haplography:
[1] I had smote off his (own) head with his own sword (73:49)
[2] and Laban also (d) was a descendant of joseph (80:5)
[3] how is it (how great things) that ye have forgotten how great things (84:25-26)
[4] it came to pass that (I) after i had praid unto the lord (88:47-48)
[5] for the plates uppon which i make a (pe) full account of my people (94:44-45)
[6] come to the (Re) knowlledge of the true masiah their lord and their redemer (98:14-15)
[7] i desire to be hold (to) t(re)he things which my father saw ... thy father saw the tree (101:4-7)
[8] have been lifted up (above) by the power of God above all other Nations (119:11-12)
[9] & (pre) most precious parts (120:40)
[10] I did slay (bea) wild beasts (136:1)
[11] make himself a (Ru) King & a ruler over us (137:21)
[12] O house of (I) Jacob which are called by the name of Israel (153-54: 38, 1)
[13] the Lamanites could not come upon us by (many) night and slay us which they attempted many times (450:9)

--(numbers and bold added for convenience)

Except for one example (3), all are one word or part of a word, even a single letter, that appear to jump ahead, which can happen in dictation. With the exception of (1), none have similar wording that could cause the scribe's eye to skip to the wrong place. Just because the scribe appears to skip ahead doesn't mean he is visually copying another MS. Skousen interprets these examples as evidence of "scribal anticipations".

Evidence from scribal anticipations (caused by the scribe accidentally skipping ahead while writing down dictation) suggests that Joseph Smith sometimes dictated up to thirty words at a time. (p. 6)

This is a far more likely reason, than Chandler's belief that they are haplography due to the scribe's eye skipping ahead. Another reason for the apparent skipping ahead is that Joseph Smith apparently changed direction in his dictation. In other words, he sometimes got ahead of himself in the dictation. Skousen also hinted at this in his introduction--

In general, there are very few signs of any editing or Joseph changing his mind about the translation. (p. 6)

I think these two principles are operating behind Chandler's examples--at least this seems more likely since there are no similar words to confuse the scribe and mostly one word or part of a word.

[1] I had smote off his (own) head with his own sword (73:49)

The only example with similar wording ("his"), but probably just bad English being corrected.

[2] and Laban also (d) was a descendant of joseph (80:5)

Skousen: {<%d%> | w}as a desendant

No reason for eye to skip. Caught too soon to be accidental haplography. Probably scribe getting ahead of himself.

[3]how is it (how great things) that ye have forgotten how great things (84:25-26)

1 Ne. 7:11. Is this evidence that the scribe's eye skipped ahead? There is no reason for the eye to skip. Or is it evidence that Joseph Smith was struggling with impromptu dictation of a difficult passage? Or, perhaps the scribe got ahead of himself, as Skousen suggests? Regardless, not good evidence of haplography.

[4] it came to pass that (I) after i had praid unto the lord (88:47-48)

Skousen: it came to pass that <I> after i had praid unto the lord ^i^ be{h}eld ...

1 Ne. 8:9. The third "i" is above the line. Bad English being corrected, or Joseph Smith correcting himself when he added a dependent clause. In other words, he started to say, "I beheld ..." But then changed his mind, which is expected in dictation.

[5] ... [my people] for the plates uppon which i make a (pe) full account of my people (94:44-45)

No reason for the eye to skip, either forwards or backwards. Scribe wrote "pe", erased it, and then wrote "full". Skousen would say the scribe got ahead of himself, especially since "wrote people" makes no sense.

[6] come to the (Re) knowlledge of the true masiah their lord and their redemer (98:14-15)

1 Ne. 10:14. No reason for scribe's eye to skip forward. Either Joseph Smith changed his mind, or scribe couldn't keep up.

[7] i desire to be hold (to) t(re)he things which my father saw ... thy father saw the tree (101:4-7)

1 Ne. 11:2-4. Not haplography. Chandler thinks the scribe's eye skipped three lines for no apparent reason? Not likely.

... and the Spirit saith unto
me be hold what desirest thou and i said i desire to
be hold <to> tree|the ^things^ which my father saw and the spirit
saith unto me believest thou that thy father saw
the tree of which he hath spoken

More likely, Joseph Smith's started to say,

"and i [Nephi] saith i desire to behold [the] tree which my father saw ...

But changed his mind and had the scribe change "tree" to "the ^things^ ("things" written above the line).

[8] have been lifted up (above) by the power of God above all other Nations (119:11-12)

No reason for eye to skip. Rather, the type of correction one would expect in impromptu dictation, when Joseph Smith change his mind about word ordering. Starting to say "have lifted up above all other nations by the power of God", but changing it to present word ordering.

[9] & (pre) most precious parts (120:40)

Probably Joseph Smith correcting himself by adding "most". Like saying, "... most plain and precious ... (rather) ... most precious ..." Which would explain why the scribe only writes three letters, whereas in copying one would expect the scribe to complete the word before looking back at the source document.

[10]I did slay (bea) wild beasts (136:1)

Again, probably Joseph Smith adding an adjective after dictating the noun.

[11] make himself a (Ru) King & a ruler over us (137:21)

No reason for eye to skip. Most likely Joseph Smith rephrasing.

[12] O house of (I) Jacob which are called by the name of Israel (153-54: 38, 1)

No reason for eye to skip. Most likely, Joseph Smith saying "Israel" and then deciding to qualify the term.

[13] the Lamanites could not come upon us by (many) night and slay us which they attempted many times (450:9)

Alma 57. O-MS at this point is badly damaged and seems to have been a challenge to dictate since there are many corrections, erasures, and overwrites. But the scribe caught the error immediately, erased it, and wrote "night". In the previous line, the scribe wrote "many da", erased "da" and wrote "night", which may have been the source of confusion.

Chandler's Argument from Personal Circumstances

In the last section of his response to my critique, Chandler tries to coerce my ascent to his analysis by reference to my own source-critical notations to the Newel Knight journal in Early Mormon Documents . Thus Chandler argues:

Let's consider another type of error documented by Vogel in his own edition of the Newel Knight Journal. Vogel notes two places in which the manuscript replaces "my" with "his," three places where "me" is overwritten by "him," another place where "I" is overwritten by "he," and "he" is overwritten by "him." Vogel states: "This kind of change is important because it shows how closely Knight followed Joseph Smith's published history" (Early American Documents, 4:31). But similar changes are found in the O-MS. Here are some examples.

Then, Chandler gives the following examples from O-MS, which make corrections to personal pronouns.

[1] many were lost from (My view) his view (92:16)[2] which (their) thy father saw (111:30)
[3] the Angel saith ... the rath of God is upon the seed of (my) thy Brethren (114:28)
[4] the one pointed the way whither (they) we should go (133:31)
[5] the power of the Lord that hath shaken (me) us (145:22)
[6] in as much as ye will not keep (his) my commandments ye shall be cut off from (his) my presance (169:4-5)
[7] according to the time which (he) they laboured (212:13)
[8] behold (he) we went forth even in wrath (264:19)
[9] destruction among those who (he) they so dearly beloved (268:19)
[10] also his people with them if (Moro) they would spare the remainder (372:17)
[11] the armies of the Nephites or of Moroni returned & came to (his) their houses (372:26)
[12] that if (he) they would support (379:32)
[13] for he knew (that he) that they would stir up the Lamanites (385:9)
[14] went forth unto him to be Baptised for (he) they came repenting (509:15)
[15] (they could) we can not hit him (509:19)

--(numbers added for convenience)

From these examples, Chandler makes the following conclusion--

These emendations seem to indicate that a text was being followed closely but was also being changed in ways similar to Knight's journal.

The difference is that I can compare Knight's journal entries against Joseph Smith's history, but Chandler does not have access to his proposed proto-BOM MS. Nor have I based my comment on the emendation of personal pronouns, but on the body of the text itself. Where Joseph Smith says "I", Knight must change it to "his". This is not what happens in most of Chandler's examples. Again, Chandler wastes our time with a list of indiscriminately chosen pronoun changes without explaining exactly how they become evidence for a proto-BOM MS. There are other reasons for changing pronouns than what Knight found necessary for his situation. Problems in pronoun agreement are typical of dictated texts, especially by someone of Joseph Smith's education, but not of Rigdon. There are no systematic changes of first to third person as in Knight's journal, but rather most of the examples deal with correction of error resulting from internal textual problems. Joseph Smith wasn't the best grammarian, and problems of pronoun agreement are to be expected. Similar examples appear in his Old Testament MS #1--

[<word> for strikeouts; \word/ for above the line insertions]

Old Testament MS #1
p. 7-- remain with <thee> \me,/ she gave me
p. 9-- I know not am I <thy> my brothers keeper
p. 13-- made known unto <our> \my/ fathers
p. 17-- and all the workmanship of <thine> \mine/ hands


Conclusion

Vogel hasn't shown that Skousen didn't mean exactly what he said about replacing one letter by another, he hasn't demonstrated that Skousen's explanations are "more likely" than other possibilities, he is completely unaware of dittography and haplography in the O-MS, and he ignores changes similar to those in Knight's journal. All of this poses serious challenges to Vogel's position.

I hope I have shown that Chandler doesn't understand Skousen's editorial procedure. Chandler hasn't responded to either me or Skousen on the hearing evidence, so he loses by default. Chandler hasn't produced definitive dittography or haplography from O-MS. When Chandler produces evidence from O-MS similar to Newel Knight's shifts in perspective, then he can say that I ignore such evidence. It is Chandler's position that is in serious trouble. It has been since he received his first criticisms, which he didn't take seriously. Hopefully, we have got his attention now.

[Bedlamite]

Chandler hasn't responded to either me or Skousen on the hearing evidence,
so he loses by default. Chandler hasn't produced definitive dittography or
haplography from O-MS... It is Chandler's position that is in serious trouble.

Well then, that may be so -- or perhaps not, depending on how convincing such arguments are preceived
by whomever decides "losses" and "wins" in a discussion such as this one.

Let us suppose, for the sake of further consideration, that a substantial portion of the O-MS was indeed
dictated. How does that argue against any pre-existing textual sources being incorporated into the Book of Mormon?
California Kid is asking essentially the same question, but whether enough pages of 1st Nephi are extant
to conduct the study he has suggested, I do not know. But, to follow his his Isaiah suggestions just a little:

We already know that a good deal of Isaiah was incorporated into the O-MS -- whether that material
was dictated, copied, or some combination of both.

Since we know pre-existing textual matter was somehow transferred over into the pages
of the O-MS (by one means or another), should not that fact alert us to the possibility of finding
other transferred or plagiarized text preserved within the body of the Book of Mormon manuscript(s)?

I continue to plod along, doing quantitative analysis on the story themes, vocabulary, phraseology, and
non-contextual word patterns in the block of Book of Mormon text which I refer to as the "Book of Solomon" --
but if the consensus opinion of the readers of this thread is that this section of the book could not have
possibly originated with Solomon Spalding, then perhaps I should devote my time to some more productive
line of investigation....
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol1.htm




????

Uncle Dale

[_CaliforniaKid]

I think, Dan, that you have done a very good job of demonstrating the weakness of the visual copying hypothesis. Very thorough, methodical, and right on in terms of your understanding of text-critical markers. I am curious whether any of Skousen's hearing errors occur in the Isaiah section of the Book of Mormon. I have a strong suspicion that these chapters were dictated like the rest (thus the careful changes to italicized words and phrases), but I know it has been suggested that Joseph might have Cowdery copy them directly out of the Bible. If it can be demonstrated that the lengthy KJV quotations were orally dictated, then we are left with only a couple options: (1) Joseph memorized very lengthy passages of the KJV, perhaps unconsciously as in automatic writing, or (2) Joseph was dictating from a written source text. If we side with the second option, that he was reading aloud from the printed KJV, then what's to stop us from believing that he also read aloud from some other manuscript (or even that the KJV material had first been copied over onto said manuscript)? We know that he spelled out proper names (like "Coriantumr") during dictation, and that he occasionally expressed surprise at things he came across (e.g. that Jerusalem had walls). To have him dictating from a pre-existing manuscript explains these things quite nicely, I think. If we were looking for evidence that a person was reading aloud from a written text and that the dictation was being recorded by a scribe, what might we look for? Perhaps confusion of visually-similar words that don't sound alike, rather like the examples you gave earlier from the P-MS:

Mosiah 15:9: <sanctified> \satisfied/
Mosiah 27:37: <deliver> declare
Alma 8:13: <cursed> \caused/
Alma 34:10: <sacrament> \sacrifice/
Alma 56:27: <prisoners> \provisions/
Alma 58:22: <suppose> \suffer/
Hel. 4:25: <cause> \cease/
3 Ne. 8:25: <burned> \buried/
3 Ne. 20:42 <reward> \rearward/

If we don't find anything like this in O-MS, then we may be on thin ice even in suggesting that Joseph Smith read the KJV portions from a printed text. In that case perhaps automatic writing would be a better thesis.

Just thinking out loud.

-CK

[_CaliforniaKid]

Brent, my data show that Mosiah had a very high occurrence of both wherefore and therefore. Then in Alma, therefore stays high but wherefore drops to almost zero. Couldn't this sudden lexical shift be due to Smith's regular interaction (starting when he came to Alma) with a source text that tended to exclude the word wherefore? Just a thought.

Ocurrences per 1k words

.....................Mos ......................Alm
therefore..... 3.944077471.........3.362292943
wherefore.....4.672897196.........0.03206567

By the way, my chart was offset by one book when I wrote this. The correct data for Mosiah and Alma is:

.....................Mos ......................Alm
therefore..... 3.944077471.........3.362292943
wherefore.....0.03206567.........0.035268807

So the apparent anomaly disappears when the amateur gets his facts straight. Just for fun, I charted the data for wherefore and therefore for all the world to see. Brent's vocabulary shift is clearly apparent.



Use ratios of the word "according" also follow a pattern that seems to support Mosiah priority. Most of the other 15 non-contextual or semi-contextual words I studied, however, vary almost haphazardly from book to book. A few follow patterns that would seem to belie Mosiah priority, but as Brent alluded earlier, straight word ratios (especially when uncontrolled for KJV citation) are less reliable indicators than the kinds of out-and-out vocabulary shift we find in the wherefore/therefore case. Still haven't read your article, Brent, but I plan to. In the meantime I just wanted to set the record straight for posterity.

-CK

[_Uncle Dale]

Still haven't read your article, Brent, but I plan to...

I have read it -- a couple of times when I first bought the book and a couple of times
again in the last two days.

When I asked Brent how his findings prove that the Book of Mormon does not incorporate pre-existing
text, he simply referred me back to the article -- as though it were a universal law of
physics, or something.

I am quite content to suppose Joseph Smith and associates continued "bringing forth" the books from
Mosiah forward, after the loss of the Book of Lehi. I have no trouble in supposing that Moroni
and 1st/2nd Nephi were the last texts finalized.

But if the argument is stated, that Rigdon could not have had a hand in compiling the text, because
no person would switch from using "therefore" to "wherefore," then that argument must be applied
to all potential authors for the text. And if it is stated that Smith could have been influenced to
change his word useage, then I'd say that the same could be supposed for Rigdon.

One thing that I did notice, and that is, while Solomon Spalding made use of "therefore" about
20 times in his extant writings, he did not use "wherefore" (unless it was in a legal document).

Thus, Spalding's known use of the word pair falls 100% on the "therefore" side of word choice.
The same may be said of the "Book of Solomon" portion of Alma/Helaman I've been studying.
And, a quick check of the other, shorter Book of Mormon sections I've long attributed to Spalding's pen,
only turns up a couple of "wherefores."

Here is the vocabulary list of the Alma-Helaman section I'm still working with -- just in case you
feel the urge to chart some more word selection in the Book of Mormon text:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol2.htm

Uncle Dale

[_Dan Vogel]

California Kid,

I think, Dan, that you have done a very good job of demonstrating the weakness of the visual copying hypothesis. Very thorough, methodical, and right on in terms of your understanding of text-critical markers. I am curious whether any of Skousen's hearing errors occur in the Isaiah section of the Book of Mormon. I have a strong suspicion that these chapters were dictated like the rest (thus the careful changes to italicized words and phrases), but I know it has been suggested that Joseph might have Cowdery copy them directly out of the Bible.

Very few pages of the Isaiah chapters from O-MS are extant. I don't think this question can be resolved from the MS.

1 Ne. 20-21 = Isa. 48-49 / O-MS, 40-43

2 Ne. 7-8 = Isa. 50-51
2 Ne. 7:1-9 = Isa. 50:1-9 / O-MS, 59 (badly damaged fragment)
2 Ne. 8:6-17 = Isa. 51:6-17 / OMS, 60 (badly damaged fragment)

2 Ne. 12-24 = Isa. 2-14 / O-MS, not extant

All variant readings are on the line except one in 1 Ne. 20:11 ("how should I" canceled with "I will not suffer" inserted above the line). This would suggest that most of the variant readings were decided on before being written down by the scribe.

It is possible that Joseph Smith used a Bible in which he made corrections in the margins similar to what he did with his Bible Revision, and then either read from it or had Cowdery copy it. This possibility is not contradicted by eyewitness testimony, which focused on the use of a MS, that is, something like the Spalding MS, and did not preclude use of the Bible. Joseph Smith could have introduced the Bible as an aid in translation without rousing skepticism or evoking later comment.

I see nothing to decide definitively the issue of whether these chapter were dictated or copied. However, the lack of punctuation seems to suggest that at least the parts we have were dictated. (We should not assume the same method was used for all the Isaiah material either, particularly the largest segment, for which we have nothing.)

If it can be demonstrated that the lengthy KJV quotations were orally dictated, then we are left with only a couple options: (1) Joseph memorized very lengthy passages of the KJV, perhaps unconsciously as in automatic writing, or (2) Joseph was dictating from a written source text. If we side with the second option, that he was reading aloud from the printed KJV, then what's to stop us from believing that he also read aloud from some other manuscript (or even that the KJV material had first been copied over onto said manuscript)?

Of course, #1 evokes from the apologists an argument for Joseph Smith's inspiration. I don't think it is possible that Joseph Smith could dictate the lengthy chapters from Isaiah. I think it is reasonable to conclude that his head was out of the hat for that material, but that doesn't give us license to conclude that he could have also been reading from the Spalding-Rigdon MS, which is expressly denied by the witnesses.

We know that he spelled out proper names (like "Coriantumr") during dictation,

Which would happen regardless of the method he used.

and that he occasionally expressed surprise at things he came across (e.g. that Jerusalem had walls).

This happened with Emma in the lost 116-page MS (David Whitmer repeated the story). Of course, this was mere pretense to make it appear that he was translating, rather than authoring the Book of Mormon. His feigned ignorance is not believable coming from someone who would later admit in 1832 that he had searched the scriptures since age 12 and concluded before 1820 that sectarians didn't follow what was written in that "sacred depository".

To have him dictating from a pre-existing manuscript explains these things quite nicely, I think.

I don't think the Isaiah chapters tell us anything about the dictation of the rest of the book. You are attempting to use what probably is an exceptional circumstance to explain away the unanimous eyewitness testimony.

If we were looking for evidence that a person was reading aloud from a written text and that the dictation was being recorded by a scribe, what might we look for? Perhaps confusion of visually-similar words that don't sound alike, rather like the examples you gave earlier from the P-MS:

Mosiah 15:9: <sanctified> \satisfied/
Mosiah 27:37: <deliver> declare
Alma 8:13: <cursed> \caused/
Alma 34:10: <sacrament> \sacrifice/
Alma 56:27: <prisoners> \provisions/
Alma 58:22: <suppose> \suffer/
Hel. 4:25: <cause> \cease/
3 Ne. 8:25: <burned> \buried/
3 Ne. 20:42 <reward> \rearward/

If we don't find anything like this in O-MS, then we may be on thin ice even in suggesting that Joseph Smith read the KJV portions from a printed text. In that case perhaps automatic writing would be a better thesis.

Just thinking out loud.

I don't believe automatic writing explains what Joseph Smith did. Whether he read from the KJV or was able to access the same information through automatic writing (which is doubtful), the scribe would be subject to make the same types of errors, and hence what appears in the O-MS would not distinguish between the two processes.

[_Uncle Dale]

I don't believe automatic writing explains what Joseph Smith did.

Aren't there different manifestations or levels of "automatic writing?" Such as the automatic or trance dictation
of Edgar Cayce -- the "inspired" writings of the Prophetess Ellen White -- the fully "automatic" typing of the
Oahspe: A Kosmon Bible by John Ballou Newbrough. etc -- ???

What exactly is automatic writing -- or spirit writing -- or Ouija Board "communications?"

So far as I can tell, it is a special sort of hypographia, produced by one part of the brain (say, the sub-conscious),
but where the cognative (or conscious) part of the brain is largely unaware of how the process is manifesting itself.

In my own case, have since childhood possessed some some disassocative abilities, whereby I can occasionally
"stand outside of myself" (ekstasis) when listening to certain kinds of music, reading/writing poetry, etc.

From these experiences, I know that it is possible for the conscious influence of the mind to be willfully (if that is
the correct word) diminished, so that other mental/emotional/paranormal human functions can assert themselves
to a greater or lesser degree. As I said, I have written poetry while in this state of consciousness -- one example
of which I've posted to the web.

My theory is that recall of near-photographic memories and ekstasis can be (and sometimes are) complementary
mental phenomena. Thus, a person who can recite lengthy sections of the Bible from memorization might have
some unusual mental abilities in common with a person who could write an entire historical novel, from start to
finish, with few corrections along the way --- or to a person who could write or dictate the same novel while in a
mental trance, hypnotized, in a state of ecstasy, or even barely conscious at all.

If I understand your theory of Joseph Smith -- it is that he wrote the Book of Mormon more or less "on the fly," without producing very
many internal inconsistencies, but that the same time maintaining an exterior consistency (of a sort), with certain
biblical/"seeker" religious themes, prophecies, predictions, promises, theological constructs, etc.

If that is the case, then would not his dictation efforts, as you imagine them, fall somewhere on a spectrum of known
modes of fictional/narrative composition, ranging from a conscious, methodical plot construction at one end of the
chart, to unconscious, Edgar Cayce type trance dictation at the other end of the chart?

Uncle Dale