Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Uncle Dale]

Has any Mormon ever accused the Conneaut witnesses of false
memories, OTHER than recollections harmful to Mormonism?

I mean, it seems strange to me that the ONLY false memories these
folks happened to have were the ones the LDS don't like.

UD

Which question is irrelevant to the subject.

Glenn

So -- you do not sound very eager to convince me that those
folks had a propensity to relate "false memories," do you?

That's OK -- if you do not want to provide even a single example
as evidence for your case.

But I had expected something better from you -- based upon all
of your research into the character and mental states of those
people. Can't you even cite one case in which they obviously
all were suffering from false memories?

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

So -- you do not sound very eager to convince me that those
folks had a propensity to relate "false memories," do you?

That's OK -- if you do not want to provide even a single example
as evidence for your case.

But I had expected something better from you -- based upon all
of your research into the character and mental states of those
people. Can't you even cite one case in which they obviously
all were suffering from false memories?

UD

Yes, the Hurlbut affidavits.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

So -- you do not sound very eager to convince me that those
folks had a propensity to relate "false memories," do you?

That's OK -- if you do not want to provide even a single example
as evidence for your case.

But I had expected something better from you -- based upon all
of your research into the character and mental states of those
people. Can't you even cite one case in which they obviously
all were suffering from false memories?

UD

Yes, the Hurlbut affidavits.
Glenn

I don't think you understood me.

If you want me to believe that those people had false
memories, then show me at least one example of that,
other than the controversy over what story elements
were in the manuscript.

Show me something wrong in the statements -- an obvious
error or mistake or misstatement.

Certainly you can find one such example, if those people had
such bad memories as some historians have concluded.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...Certainly you can find one such example
...

For example, in 1833 Henry Lake said: "my wife found the book
in my coat pocket..." Now perhaps this was a false memory,
and he had no wife at the time. If he had a false memory on
that particular point, it would be easier to believe he had a
false memory about "telling Mr. Spalding, that the so frequent
use of the words" was a problem in the unpublished story.

Or -- in 1833 John said his brother Solomon engaged in the
"mercantile business in company with his brother Josiah." If
he had a false memory on that particular point -- and Solomon
and Josiah Spalding never were in the "mercantile business"
together, it would be easier to believe that he also had a
false memory about the manuscript telling the story of "the
first settlers of America."

Do you understand my question now?

[_Roger]

Glenn:

Okay, I have been over this with Dale. We do not have a copy of this statement supposedly signed by Robert Patterson. It is in the third person. We have no idea who really is the author of that statement or that it was actually signed by Robert Patterson. This was in a pamphlet By Samuel Williams called "Mormonism Exposed". The authenticity and accuracy of that statement cannot be determined by the extant evidence.

From E. D. Howe's "Mormonism Unvailed", page 289, "Mr. Patterson says he has no recollection of any such manuscript being brought there for publication, neither would he have been likely to have seen it, as the business of printing was conducted wholly by Lambdin at that time."

This directly contradicts the first statement.

It doesn't directly contradict it. It simply shows that Robert Patterson was not impressed with Spalding's novel and he never thought he would be interrogated on it decades later. He had more important matters to attend to and delegated responsibilities to others.

So, we still have no prima facie case for a manuscript resembling the Book of Mormon ever being at the printer's establishment.

Opportunity is what we have. A Spalding novel of some sort was submitted for consideration. No one disputes that. Your only contention was that we demonstrate it wasn't the Roman story. Overlooking the obvious fact that the Roman story is not at all even close to being ready to submit for publication, I provided you with additional evidence in the form of a statement by Patterson indicating the language was "chiefly in the style of our English translation of the Bible" which you don't accept. No surprise there.

I can't help it if you choose to refuse the evidence. I already mentioned the other reasons to conclude that the Roman story was not the manuscript submitted, but in order for your theory to hold, it has to have been the one submitted, therefore you refuse to accept that evidence as well. Again, no surprise.

But I'm interested in how you see this all playing out.....

Yay!!! Your're beginning to get it. Now apply that same reasoning to the Hurlbut witnesses and you're almost there.

Okay... let's do it. Tell me how this all goes down. Let's start with John and Martha. How much of their statements do you accept?

You note that the missionaries mentioned unspecified uproars in their diaries. That was a given just about anywhere they preached. Noting the published uproar that was occasioned by Hurlbut, it defies logic to assert that there would have been no reason to write about it until Hurlbut came along with his allegations.

No what defies logic is your demand that someone write about it within the time frame you demand and that those writings should still exist.

Benjamin Winchester and Daniel Tyler both assert that there was nothing being noised about until Hurlbut brought it up.

Because he was out to prove that Hurlbut started the whole thing! Even Dan Vogel doesn't accept that.

As I mentioned in another post, One of the witnesses, Henry Lake, that Hurlbut coached stated that he had borrowed a copy of the Book of Mormon and realized that it contained material from Spalding's romance after his wife started reading it to him. Yet he said nothing about it at the time. None of the other witnesses mentioned Henry spilling the beans to them.

You can't possibly know what he "said nothing about" at the time! That's an absurd claim. In the first place, you're not even sure of what "time" you are referring to. Lake only says: "Some months ago...." What does that mean? Two months? Four months? Eight months? The fact is, you don't know. And you also don't know who he did and did not mention it to! But we can be sure if Hurlbut had gotten a statement from Mrs. Lake you would now be complaining that their statements agree too much!

So lets' see what Henry actually says:

Some months ago I borrowed the Golden Bible, put it into my pocket, carried it home, and thought no more of it. -- About a week after, my wife found the book in my coat pocket, as it hung up, and commenced reading it aloud as I lay upon the bed. She had not read 20 minutes till I was astonished to find the same passages in it that Spalding had read to me more, than twenty years before, from his "Manuscript Found." Since that, I have more fully examined the said Golden Bible, and have no hesitation in saying that the historical part of it is principally, if not wholly taken from the "Manuscript Found."

Now this is quite interesting when we consider it from your perspective, because, we have to wonder how Hurlbut--that master false-memory implanter--implanted this whole episode--which occurred "some months" before he even arrived on the scene and took the statements--into the brain of Henry Lake? Not only is Hurlbut so slick as to convince Lake that Fabius and Lobaska are Lehi and Nephi, but then, outdoing himself, he also convinces Lake that when his wife read the borrowed Gold Bible to him (assuming Hurlbut didn't implant that false memory also!), that he (Lake) had actually thought he recognized a resemblance at that time--some months ago! But, of course, since Glenn is convinced false memories are really at play here, we know that can't be true, because Hurlbut is the bad guy here who implants all these false memories into the innocent but suggestible minds of these Conneaut simpletons!

How could I not see it?!

Oh, and because "none of the other witnesses mentioned Henry spilling the beans to them" we can conclude what? That he must never have discussed it with any other living soul, because surely every pre-Hurlbut conversation in the Conneaut area would have been recorded for posterity--and signed and notarized of course, in anticipation that Glenn wouldn't accept it otherwise.

Like I said, stick with "they were all anti-Mormon liars out to destroy Mormonism" and the logic will work out much better.

All the best.

[_why me]

So after 28 pages, what can we conclude? I am waiting for the conclusion. Can I conclude that the subject of spaulding will be an open ended one for quite some time? And can I conclude that the Jockers' study has now been refuted?

[Rosebud]

Whyme you can go back to dreaming what it must have been like seeing a man sticking his head in a hat, looking at a stone and allegedly translating from some goldplates that were hidden under a cloth so wife Emma could not see them. If you belive that nonsense more power to you.

[_GlennThigpen]

...Certainly you can find one such example
...

For example, in 1833 Henry Lake said: "my wife found the book
in my coat pocket..." Now perhaps this was a false memory,
and he had no wife at the time. If he had a false memory on
that particular point, it would be easier to believe he had a
false memory about "telling Mr. Spalding, that the so frequent
use of the words" was a problem in the unpublished story.

Or -- in 1833 John said his brother Solomon engaged in the
"mercantile business in company with his brother Josiah." If
he had a false memory on that particular point -- and Solomon
and Josiah Spalding never were in the "mercantile business"
together, it would be easier to believe that he also had a
false memory about the manuscript telling the story of "the
first settlers of America."

Do you understand my question now?

Actually I understood your question when you first posed it. However, it is a red herring in this case. We are dealing with the affidavits and the probability that they have elements of substituted memory in them. We have already strayed far far from the OP of this thread for some reason. I am not going to go down another path for which I do not have enough information to make a case.

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

Whyme you can go back to dreaming what it must have been like seeing a man sticking his head in a head, looking at a stone and allegedly translating from some goldplates that were hidden under a cloth so wife Emma could not see them. If you belive that nonsense more power to you.

And what does that have to do with Bruce Schaalje's response to the Jockers, Criddle, et al study?

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

[quote="Roger wrote:It doesn't directly contradict it. It simply shows that Robert Patterson was not impressed with Spalding's novel and he never thought he would be interrogated on it decades later. He had more important matters to attend to and delegated responsibilities to others.

Roger, if one statement says that he was given a manuscript by a "man of the East" which does not even have to be Spalding, and another statement which says that he never saw any such manuscript, how is that not a contradiction.

And you have yet to respond to the problem that the statement attributed to Robert Patterson is written in the third person.

Opportunity is what we have. A Spalding novel of some sort was submitted for consideration. No one disputes that. Your only contention was that we demonstrate it wasn't the Roman story. Overlooking the obvious fact that the Roman story is not at all even close to being ready to submit for publication, I provided you with additional evidence in the form of a statement by Patterson indicating the language was "chiefly in the style of our English translation of the Bible" which you don't accept. No surprise there.

We have a statement in the third person supposedly signed by Patterson. A man of the East? Was that even Spalding? In an anti-mormon tract. You do not have any evidence here.

I can't help it if you choose to refuse the evidence. I already mentioned the other reasons to conclude that the Roman story was not the manuscript submitted, but in order for your theory to hold, it has to have been the one submitted, therefore you refuse to accept that evidence as well. Again, no surprise.

Oh, the Hurlbut coached witnesses?

Okay... let's do it. Tell me how this all goes down. Let's start with John and Martha. How much of their statements do you accept?

That they heard Spalding read from a manuscript.

No what defies logic is your demand that someone write about it within the time frame you demand and that those writings should still exist.

I am not demanding anything. I am only remarking that there is no mention of those alleged suspicions that can be found anywhere before Hurlbut came on the scene. All of the allegations are ex post facto, which renders them susceptible to the memory substitution.

Benjamin Winchester and Daniel Tyler both assert that there was nothing being noised about until Hurlbut brought it up.

Because he was out to prove that Hurlbut started the whole thing! Even Dan Vogel doesn't accept that.

For much the same reasons he does not accept the Hurlbut affidavits. Hurlbut was on a mission to discredit Joseph Smith.

So lets' see what Henry actually says:

Some months ago I borrowed the Golden Bible, put it into my pocket, carried it home, and thought no more of it. -- About a week after, my wife found the book in my coat pocket, as it hung up, and commenced reading it aloud as I lay upon the bed. She had not read 20 minutes till I was astonished to find the same passages in it that Spalding had read to me more, than twenty years before, from his "Manuscript Found." Since that, I have more fully examined the said Golden Bible, and have no hesitation in saying that the historical part of it is principally, if not wholly taken from the "Manuscript Found."

Now this is quite interesting when we consider it from your perspective, because, we have to wonder how Hurlbut--that master false-memory implanter--implanted this whole episode--which occurred "some months" before he even arrived on the scene and took the statements--into the brain of Henry Lake? Not only is Hurlbut so slick as to convince Lake that Fabius and Lobaska are Lehi and Nephi, but then, outdoing himself, he also convinces Lake that when his wife read the borrowed Gold Bible to him (assuming Hurlbut didn't implant that false memory also!), that he (Lake) had actually thought he recognized a resemblance at that time--some months ago! But, of course, since Glenn is convinced false memories are really at play here, we know that can't be true, because Hurlbut is the bad guy here who implants all these false memories into the innocent but suggestible minds of these Conneaut simpletons!

You have missed the point of memory substitution as to the names. I would suggest that Lake is being innovative with the truth when he is recounting the tale of his reaction to his wife reading from the Book of Mormon. One does not have to be a simpleton to have false memories.

Like I said, stick with "they were all anti-Mormon liars out to destroy Mormonism" and the logic will work out much better.

All the best.

I do not doubt that there was a bit of hyperbole in those statements. I do not know how sincere any of those witnesses were. But none of the non Hurlbut coached statements, including the daughter and widow, had those clear remembrances of names and "by land and sea" phrases.

And now, can we get back to the OP of this thread. You need to find some fatal flaws in the Schaalje extensions to the Jockers NSC study or the whole witness thing is moot.

Glenn