DAN VOGEL DISCUSSES THE SPALDING/RIGDON THEORY

[_CaliforniaKid]

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

I am inclined to disagree, but I won't press the point. I think we both agree that Joseph Smith was a man of extraordinary ability, either way.

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale,

I don't want to get too sidetracked from Spalding, but will give brief response to your queries.

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 -- ???

I have no reason to doubt the phenomenon of automatic writing is real in some people, although spirit writing by mediums of the spiritualist church were as fake as the other spiritual effects the pretended to conjure up.

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.

As I understand it hypographia is a different phenomenon linked to OCD, which is an obsessive compulsion to write. Whereas automatic writing, Ouija Board, revivalistic speaking in tongues and fainting, dowsing, hypnosis are manifestations of automaticity, where a splitting off of consciousness where the action seems unwilled (sometimes called the ideomotor effect). It is linked to disassociative states as you mention below. It is sort of like driving your car to work while you talk on the cell phone, but with a more pronounced split in awareness.

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.

Where one locates consciousness is a function of the imagination and cultural conditioning. Westerners are conditioned to locate the "seat of their soul" just behind the eyes. But that's not an imperative. It's possible to move that perspective down to the pit of the abdomen, or even out of the body entirely. Many abused children learn to leave their bodies and not be present for the abuse. I think Joseph Smith's leg operation taught him how to disassociate, or go into trance. I believe he associated such a state with inspiration--under which he dictated the Book of Mormon and some of his revelations--but it wasn't automatic, although it may have flowed more freely than when not under its influence.

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.

It doesn't have to be so dramatic. What Joseph Smith did is duplicated many times over by Mormon partriarchs--only Joseph Smith was exceptionally gifted. Patriarchs memorize formulas and learn from reading other blessings, then they pray for inspiration that God will guide them to say the right things. When they feel especially fluent, they associate that with inspiration. I think that is how Joseph Smith operated. His mind was fully active in the creation and dictation of the Book of Mormon, but prayed for God to help him get the right words that would inspire people to convert to Jesus, repent of their sins, and be saved.

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.

I have heard of people being able to speak foreign languages they didn't know, but later it was discovered they were reciting something they had heard but had forgotten it. I don't think this explains Joseph Smith use of the Bible since at the same time he was changing the text in meaningful ways. In the intro to my biography, I explain why I reject any unconscious fraud theory.

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.

On the FAIR site, I was doing a series called "Things that Don't Make Sense in the Book of Mormon", which attempted to highlight the ways in which the Book of Mormon is not as flawless as apologists present. Because the first part (1 Nephi to Word of Mormon) was dictated last, Joseph Smith created problems by inserting things not mentioned or known about in the last part. For example, in 2 Nephi, Lehi mentions the future Seer named Joseph, yet this great prophecy is unknown to later prophets. Lehi's 600 year prophecy of Jesus' birth is also unknown. Many of the plots are just plain silly fabrications that have no sense of realism--not the kind of thing I would expect from Spalding or Rigdon. In the chapters you cite (Alma 52-54) for similar phraseology to Spalding, the plots are extremely unrealistic and implausible. I don't have time to fully analyze your evidence and arguments at the moment, being preoccupied with the dictation evidence, but your grafts and charts strike me as perhaps committing the fallacy of "impossible precision". All the fancy charts do is illustrate your theory--they are only as good as the research that they illustrate. But that's where I have the most difficulty. We need to examine your use of parallel evidence to see if you have established Spalding as the source for the phraseology. Otherwise, your charts simply beg the question if we take them as proof of something.

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?

I think I answered this above.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Where one locates consciousness is a function of the imagination and cultural conditioning. Westerners are conditioned to locate the "seat of their soul" just behind the eyes. But that's not an imperative. It's possible to move that perspective down to the pit of the abdomen, or even out of the body entirely. Many abused children learn to leave their bodies and not be present for the abuse. I think Joseph Smith's leg operation taught him how to disassociate, or go into trance. I believe he associated such a state with inspiration--under which he dictated the Book of Mormon and some of his revelations--but it wasn't automatic, although it may have flowed more freely than when not under its influence.

Interesting. This seems like hair-splitting to me, but then I'm not extremely weel-versed in automatic-writing-theory. What, in your view, is the distinction b/w Joseph's dissociative/trance writing and "automatic" writing?

-CK

[_Dan Vogel]

Where one locates consciousness is a function of the imagination and cultural conditioning. Westerners are conditioned to locate the "seat of their soul" just behind the eyes. But that's not an imperative. It's possible to move that perspective down to the pit of the abdomen, or even out of the body entirely. Many abused children learn to leave their bodies and not be present for the abuse. I think Joseph Smith's leg operation taught him how to disassociate, or go into trance. I believe he associated such a state with inspiration--under which he dictated the Book of Mormon and some of his revelations--but it wasn't automatic, although it may have flowed more freely than when not under its influence.

Interesting. This seems like hair-splitting to me, but then I'm not extremely weel-versed in automatic-writing-theory. What, in your view, is the distinction b/w Joseph's dissociative/trance writing and "automatic" writing?

-CK

The amount of control. Joseph Smith may have felt inspired, but he still had to chose and struggle over wording, but in automatic writing it seems line the words are not yours.

[_CaliforniaKid]

But the way he described the translation process was that he was reading the translation off the stone, word-for-word. My understanding is that in automatic writing it is possible to actually visualize your source text in a hallucinatory fashion (even though subconsciously you are actually composing it as you go). While Joseph did mention "working it out in your mind," this comment was designed specifically to address Oliver's puzzling inability to translate, and may simply indicate some awareness on Smith's part of the role he played in assembling the images he was seeing on the stone.

-CK

[_Dan Vogel]

But the way he described the translation process was that he was reading the translation off the stone, word-for-word. My understanding is that in automatic writing it is possible to actually visualize your source text in a hallucinatory fashion (even though subconsciously you are actually composing it as you go). While Joseph did mention "working it out in your mind," this comment was designed specifically to address Oliver's puzzling inability to translate, and may simply indicate some awareness on Smith's part of the role he played in assembling the images he was seeing on the stone.

-CK

This would make Joseph Smith an unconscious fraud, which he wasn't. He knew what he was doing when he made a set of fake plates and lied about the angel's visitations. But this gets us off tack from out Spalding discussion. If you want to discuss conscious vs. unconscious fraud, you should start a new thread.

[_CaliforniaKid]

You'e right, I am off topic. Sorry, I'll be good from now on. :-P

[_marg]

Dan you write:

In part 1, I showed that Chandler’s response to Skousen’s evidence for hearing was inadequate.

I disagree with your assessment. I’ve addressed this in a previous post. Nothing you presented forces one to conclude the errors in the O manscript had to have been a hearing error. I’ll just go over the first example you presented but I’m going to quote a Farms article which says the same thing you presented. I addressed your other example in a previous post, so I won't repeat. I’m using the Farm's article, because it continued on with something you didn’t bring up but I think it's relevant.

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=167


Keep in mind, the spalding theory does NOT say dictation didn’t occur, so for argument sake, even if one determined the O ms was a result of dictation entirely, it doesn’t put a kink in the Spalding theory for those who do not accept the Book of Mormon scribes claims as credible. It only puts a kink in for those who assume the Book of Mormon scribes were truthful about process that no manuscript was present. by the way if so much is known how the Book of Mormon was dictated why aren’t scribe 2 & 3 known? Harris doesn’t count, his portion was lost. So there’s Emma, Cowdery, Smith for a portion and who else as scribe is known? Also I’d like to know what estimated percentage of 1830 Book of Mormon does existing O manuscript represent? And is a copy of the O manuscript available to researchers (independent of church) and the public? I’d like answers to those questions before reviewing and commenting on your explanation that no dittographs or haplographs are in the O manuscript if I do comment on that.


Farm’s argues:

The original manuscript was written from dictation
All witnesses of the translation stated that Joseph Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon. This claim is supported by certain errors in the original manuscript which clearly resulted from the scribe mishearing what Joseph had dictated. These errors were not the result of the scribe misreading while visually copying from some other manuscript or even from a copy of the King James Bible. As an example of this kind of error, consider the difficulty the scribe had in hearing the difference between and and an. In 1 Nephi 13:29 of the original manuscript the scribe (not yet identified, but designated as scribe 2) wrote down the following:
& because of these things which are taken away out of the gosple of the Lamb & exceeding great many do stumble
Obviously, scribe 2 misheard "an exceeding great many" as "and exceeding great many". The scribe's use of the ampersand (&) shows that the error was not based on visual similarity. Hearing an, the scribe interpreted it as the casual speech form an' for and.

Farm’s says “ The scribe's use of the ampersand (&) shows that the error was not based on visual similarity” This is incorrect. Just because the scribe writes in O ms “&” does not mean the proto Book of Mormon manuscript had an ampersand so they don't know what the scribe might have seen. The scribe would naturally want to use the ampersand rather than "and" as shortens the work.

Given there were lots of poorly written letters corrected in the Original ms., this is an indication of sloppiness and/or writing fast. Sloppiness and wriging fast does not only occur with fast dictation, it also occurs due to fatigue which in this case can be cause by amount of work and difficulty in deciphering handwriting. It is also quite conceivable that a person copying from the handwriting of another loses or fails to continue concentration of context of words, meanings of sentence and shifts focus more to deciphering words and getting them down quickly. Through fatigue and/or sloppiness and/or incorrect deciphering it is just as conceivable that the error of “and” was a misreading of “an” in a proto Book of Mormon ms. And such errors as that are likely to occur due to rushing and sloppiness.

The sort of evidence presented given by Farm's, Skousen and you is very weak because it can just as easily be copying errors instead of aural. Once again though I’d like to point out the Spalding /Rigdon theory does not preclude dictation, so having aural errors doesn’t do away with the Spalding theory which is your reason for presenting this in the first place Dan.


Farm’s continues on:

In contrast to this error from the original manuscript, the errors that are found in the printer's manuscript show that this second manuscript was visually copied. As Oliver Cowdery was copying from the original manuscript into the printer's manuscript, he sometimes incorrectly read the original manuscript. In many cases, the error leads to a more difficult reading, as in the following example:

•Alma 30:52
original manuscript:
yea & I always knew that there was a God

printer's manuscript:
yea & I also knew that there was a God

This error was due to visual similarity between the words always and also. This kind of error does not appear in the original manuscript, because the scribes were not copying from another written source but were hearing the words dictated by Joseph Smith.

How would one know this sort of error doesn’t occur in the O manuscript? In the above example both O & P manuscripts exists for comparison purposes..so we can know that entirely different words were miscopied. But if we only had the P manuscript and not our source document O for the above...we would not know that “also” was an incorrect copy error. So this evidence does not disprove that copy errors might have occurred into the O manuscript. The source document/ proto Book of Mormon manuscript is not available for comparison purposes. The issue here though is not whether P is a copy or not, so evidence for that has little value. The issue is whether or not the O manuscript was copied in portions from another source. And without having the proto Book of Mormon to determine entire word changes ..we are not able to discount the possibility that words were changed going from a proto Book of Mormon to the O ms.

Farm’s continues:

Joseph Smith was working with at least twenty words at a time
There is some evidence in the original manuscript to suggest the minimal amount of text Joseph Smith viewed as he was dictating. Consider, for instance, the evidence from scribal anticipations. Frequently the scribe, in attempting to keep up with Joseph's dictation, jumped ahead of the actual text. In the following example Oliver Cowdery anticipated the text in Alma 56:41 of the original manuscript:

& it came to pass that again when the light of the morning came we saw the Lamanites upon us

(Here and elsewhere in this article, the angled brackets refer to a crossout.) This example suggests that Joseph and Oliver started out together, but by the time Oliver finished writing "& it came to pass that again," Joseph had moved along far enough that he was then dictating "we saw the Lamanites upon us" and Oliver started to write that down when he realized he had skipped the intervening text ("when the light of the morning came"), so he immediately crossed out "we saw the Lamanites" and wrote the correct sequence, possibly with Joseph repeating the correct text for him. If this explanation is correct, then it indicates that Joseph had at least twenty words in view as he was dictating.

Let’s picture this, Joseph is dictating and Cowdery writes “& it came to pass that again we saw the lights of Lamanites upon us.” At which point he stops Smith and says 'I missed the middle of that sentence can you repeat it for me?'
Or would he more likely have stopped Smith after writing “& it came to pass that again we” and said to Joseph something along the lines of ‘ I can’t keep up I’ve missed some words can you slow down’ ..instead of Farm’s explanation that he just continued to write “we saw the Lamanites” and then stopped Smith. Obviously if Cowdery corrected and added the missing parts Smith would have had to stop anyway, so there is no time saved. It’s more likely Cowdery would asked him to stop at the appropriate time when he's realizing he's not able to keep up.

However, there is another just as likely scenario, which doesn't involved dictation, that Cowdery copying from a proto Book of Mormon text skipped the portion “when the light of the morning came” but realized it after writing the sentence that it didn’t make sense or that there were words he’d missed and then corrected the sentence. There is no reason one must assume dictation for these sorts of corrections.

by the way Farm's mentions this example as evidence of Smith dictating 20 words at a time. A scribe to shorten work could just as conceivably attempt to remember a group of words before writing them down. In fact that is how most people copy text. It's much quicker than t copying one word at a time.

[_Uncle Dale]

There is no reason one must assume dictation for these sorts of corrections.

There is, of course, a third possibility -- that while most of the O-MS may have been dictated, that in some cases
entire pages were re-written after a dictation session. Old reports say that the writing paper was an expense and
a difficulty for Smith & Co., but there may be some places where an entire signature (four pages of a folded sheet)
had to be copied/re-written after dictation.

For example, if the ink bottle were mistakenly overturned upon a page -- or if more than a few words dropped out
of the story the first time it had been written down and there were no space to wedge in the necessary additions.

This is why I do not find either Vogel's or Chandler's scenerios totally convincing --- because there were just too
many variables involved in the writing process that we cannot appreciate, being so far removed in time from the
O-MS writing activities.

However, all of that aside, I think Dan has made a good case for at least part of the extant O-MS pages having
been dictated, and I think Ted has made a good case for a few scattered copyist's corrections/errors.

We could spend forever discussing this aspect of the re-created history, but if Dan's main purpose in contributing
to this thread is to dissuade folks from further consideration (or investigation) of a Spalding-Rigdon-Smith Book of Mormon
compilation, then I hope we can move on to other sub-topics in short order.

As for myself, I believe that Rigdon was a combination of religious zealot, control freak, and occasional knowing fraud,
who carried out a great deal of his church-building and church-controling activities out of the public scrutiny. When
so much of the initial Mormon history-making was conducted in secret, I'm not sure we can ever hope to re-construct
even significant portions of its development and promotion.

So ------ I came here with the thought that I would be shown reasons why I should abandon any further pursuit of
a Spalding-Rigdon-Smith authorshop explanation. It is beginning to look like nobody is really prepared to get at
the heart of that thesis, and I'm now wondering how much more effort any of us should expend upon a discussion
that seems not to be furthering its own goals.

????

Uncle Dale

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale,

There is, of course, a third possibility -- that while most of the O-MS may have been dictated, that in some cases
entire pages were re-written after a dictation session. Old reports say that the writing paper was an expense and
a difficulty for Smith & Co., but there may be some places where an entire signature (four pages of a folded sheet)
had to be copied/re-written after dictation.

For example, if the ink bottle were mistakenly overturned upon a page -- or if more than a few words dropped out
of the story the first time it had been written down and there were no space to wedge in the necessary additions.

You are right. Even if there were solid evidence of copying, it would only make it possible for a Spalding-Rigdon MS to have been copied. It's not evidence for a particular MS. However, Chandler's argument for copying involves too many people being in a conspiracy and afterwards lying about how the Book of Mormon was dictated. It seems easier--if one is going to ignore the eyewitness testimony--to assert that Joseph Smith read the text from behind the curtain. But the eyewitness testimony is there, and Spalding advocates need to include it in their speculations.

This is why I do not find either Vogel's or Chandler's scenerios totally convincing --- because there were just too
many variables involved in the writing process that we cannot appreciate, being so far removed in time from the
O-MS writing activities.

It's good to keep in mind that we are not talking about what happened in the past, but what the evidence left us means.

However, all of that aside, I think Dan has made a good case for at least part of the extant O-MS pages having
been dictated, and I think Ted has made a good case for a few scattered copyist's corrections/errors.

I think O-MS is consistent with eyewitness testimony. But I also think there is plenty of evidence that Joseph Smith was editing as he was dictating, and even some evidence that the text was being adjusted even after dictation.

We could spend forever discussing this aspect of the re-created history, but if Dan's main purpose in contributing
to this thread is to dissuade folks from further consideration (or investigation) of a Spalding-Rigdon-Smith Book of Mormon
compilation, then I hope we can move on to other sub-topics in short order.

I wouldn't dissuade anyone from investigating anything. But in their assessing the value of various kinds of evidence, they need to consider both eyewitness testimony and complementary evidence from O-MS.

As for myself, I believe that Rigdon was a combination of religious zealot, control freak, and occasional knowing fraud,
who carried out a great deal of his church-building and church-controling activities out of the public scrutiny. When
so much of the initial Mormon history-making was conducted in secret, I'm not sure we can ever hope to re-construct
even significant portions of its development and promotion.

When Rigdon talked about secrets, he certainly wasn't admitting to writing the Book of Mormon.

So ------ I came here with the thought that I would be shown reasons why I should abandon any further pursuit of
a Spalding-Rigdon-Smith authorshop explanation. It is beginning to look like nobody is really prepared to get at
the heart of that thesis, and I'm now wondering how much more effort any of us should expend upon a discussion
that seems not to be furthering its own goals.

Well, you seem a little impatient. Perhaps if you give it more time, you just might get your wish. I wish I had more time to devote to this thread, but I'm trying to tackle each issue at a time and not get too scattered. It's my effort to make it a meaningful exchange. Do you think we are finished talking about dictation? It doesn't sound like you have grasped the significance of that evidence. You seem content to leave it in the realm of the fuzzy ideas. You worry about "too many variables in the writing process", but are willing to transform random phrases into exacting charts. That's puzzling to me. But I'm willing to discuss whatever you want--just go at my pace.