"The Widow's Son": curious pseudo-history of Mormon origins

[_Bret Ripley]

Warning: if there is a drinking game based on familiar conspiracy theory themes, this book could absolutely destroy your liver. But if you are a student of history, you may just die laughing.

http://issuu.com/theresistance/docs/-np--mormon1

"The Widow's Son: The Esoteric History of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Origin of Mormonism" is out-of-print and almost impossible to find. The few copies I've discovered online had a price tag of over $100. Please note that I do not know whether the book appears at the above link with the blessing of the author.

To summarize, author Kerry O'Boran gives Mormonism the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" treatment (in fact, in places he relies rather heavily on that discredited work). In addition to some familar characters, it features an impressive cast and the Masons, the Rosicrucians, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Ben Franklin and Mozart all get a piece of the action. It is presented as straight-up history (it isn't), but I find it to be unintentionally hilarious.

As a sort of parenthesis: if you've ever been curious about Darrick Evenson's oft-repeated claim that John Dee's "Secret Book of Madog" ("I, Madog, born of goodly parents ...") was the source for the Book of Mormon, well, this is his source. Author O'Boran claims to have been shown a copy of Dee's secret book by an unnamed person <drink!> at an undisclosed location <drink!>, and that the manuscript was in the handwriting of Isaac Newton <you know the drill>.

It ain't history, but it is imaginative and well-written enough to be entertaining. YMMV, to be sure.