Radio Free Mormon: Magic and the Book of Mormon (We Need Dan Vogel's Help!)

[_Physics Guy]

Sure, I think in hindsight [the elaborate charade of translation with seer stone and dictation from hat] works to some extent. I just don't understand the mindset he must have been in in order to think he needed something more than his recorded story, as if it came from plates. "I need to trick certain people to think I'm seeing words in a hat, so I can complete the sham!" Doesn't mean a whole lot to me. He could have just produced the text and voila, tricked everyone just the same without risking someone catching his tells or his elaborate effort to keep hidden from people right before their eyes. It's as if a major part of the whole enterprise was to pull off a big trick for the sake of pulling off the big trick.

I think Smith definitely needed something more than his recorded story to trick people, and I think he must have known clearly that he needed that something more. He was an experienced treasure-finder, after all. He knew the kind of patter it took to hook people. I'm not an expert con artist, but it just seems clear to me that simply producing a stack of foolscap, and claiming to have translated it from ancient plates that no-one was allowed to see, was never going to fly.

There's just not enough of substance there for people to hang onto mentally. It's too obvious that the handwritten pages are the same kind of handwritten page that anyone can make. It's too obvious that the only reason to think those handwritten pages have anything to do with any ancient plates is Smith's naked say-so.

If Smith is standing there with a stack of scribbled foolscap swearing that it came from God, everyone's first reaction is going to be to push for something more from him, something more to the story. If all he can do is say, "Honest, ya gotta believe me!" then that just makes it all even lamer. He has to have a bone to throw people, to make them feel they've got something solid to go on. He needs a comeback to, "Is that all you've got?"

He can't let them see the plates. The plates suck. They're modern lead of the same kind everyone knows as roofing, he only even tried to engrave the top sheet, and the scratches he made there look childish. But he has to do something. Just saying, "I got this story from God, see" is going in naked.

In reality everything Smith did with the rock and the hat and dictating to scribes was so easily faked that it isn't worth an atom more as evidence than Smith's naked word that he got it from God. But look at us, even us. We're not just snorting the whole issue away as worthless flummery. We're fussing over whether the hat was white and how porous it was and whether it made sense for Smith to go through a routine like this. We're digging into the details he gave us, gnawing the bone he tossed our way. The translation schtick is still working on us.

I think Smith was shrewd enough to know it was the right kind of stuff.

[_Stem]

I think Smith definitely needed something more than his recorded story to trick people, and I think he must have known clearly that he needed that something more. He was an experienced treasure-finder, after all. He knew the kind of patter it took to hook people. I'm not an expert con artist, but it just seems clear to me that simply producing a stack of foolscap, and claiming to have translated it from ancient plates that no-one was allowed to see, was never going to fly.

There's just not enough of substance there for people to hang onto mentally. It's too obvious that the handwritten pages are the same kind of handwritten page that anyone can make. It's too obvious that the only reason to think those handwritten pages have anything to do with any ancient plates is Smith's naked say-so.

If Smith is standing there with a stack of scribbled foolscap swearing that it came from God, everyone's first reaction is going to be to push for something more from him, something more to the story. If all he can do is say, "Honest, ya gotta believe me!" then that just makes it all even lamer. He has to have a bone to throw people, to make them feel they've got something solid to go on. He needs a comeback to, "Is that all you've got?"

He can't let them see the plates. The plates suck. They're modern lead of the same kind everyone knows as roofing, he only even tried to engrave the top sheet, and the scratches he made there look childish. But he has to do something. Just saying, "I got this story from God, see" is going in naked.

In reality everything Smith did with the rock and the hat and dictating to scribes was so easily faked that it isn't worth an atom more as evidence than Smith's naked word that he got it from God. But look at us, even us. We're not just snorting the whole issue away as worthless flummery. We're fussing over whether the hat was white and how porous it was and whether it made sense for Smith to go through a routine like this. We're digging into the details he gave us, gnawing the bone he tossed our way. The translation schtick is still working on us.

I think Smith was shrewd enough to know it was the right kind of stuff.

I don't know, most who first encountered his gold Bible story were put off by it anyway, even with his elaborate hoax. L Ron Hubbard and Mohammed had no magicians tricks. What was the guy thinking? "If I write a book and say it's scripture I'll be harangued and chased off every doorstep. But if I write it, and trick a person or two to be my scribes, as I use my magic tricks to make them think God's whispering lines to me, it'll be much more believable." I mean, maybe. I just don't think he was looking ahead like that. I guess I"m still preferring the story that he believed he was speaking scripture as he told the story line by line to a credulous follower. I guess I'm still feeling convinced he thought God was behind him every step of the way, with the one slip up.

He already convinced people before he put his head in his hat for something other than pretending to see hidden treasures. I don't know what convinced Martin Harris, Emma and Oliver Cowdery, but believing God hears millions of prayers simultaneously while also sticking his metaphorical finger into each individual's life so they face the correct adversities and feel the precise degree of peace, blessing, or attention when occasion permits, seems to put people in the right mindset. I also can't understand the degree of Chad Daybell and his wife's lunacy, but some people were drawn in.

[_Shulem]

[_Simon Southerton]

Starting today I am reading No Man Knows My History again. I want to see if anything pops out again. The other reason is that I haven't studied church history closely. So my claim that I believed Joseph Smith acted alone was based on gut instinct, not knowledge. So it's an opinion that deserves to be challenged.

At the risk of doing irreparable damage to RFM's currently inflated ego (well deserved I might add), I want to make a related point. Scientific progress mostly comes in many incremental steps. Even the major advances (e.g. double helix, evolution ec), when you look at them closely, there were many other contemporary discoveries that were leading other minds in that direction. Wallace was on the same track as Darwin, but gets little credit. In order for a discovery to be accepted widely, you almost need a significant number of people who hear about it to have almost reached the same conclusion. Many of the most spectacular scientific discoveries these days are not due to people being smarter, but the fact that the scientific tool box is so huge we make many small steps quickly.

It was well known before I stumbled on DNA that Native Americans were genetically far more closely related to Asians. A new tool came along that allowed us to put a number on that. I am not a genius by any stretch. Its more about being in the right place at the right time. I'm a pedestrian molecular geneticist who knew enough about the new tool's power. Comparing people's DNA these days is just mathematics with big numbers. It turns out that if there was Jewish DNA there it is below the level of detection which means Native Americans are at least 99.99% Asian. That is a huge jump from "closely related".

There is innocent beauty in the conceptual advance RFM has made. He's a very bright guy for sure, but he would be uncomfortable with being labelled a true genius (well maybe not after he gets used to the fame ). Its the stumbling upon it that I enjoy most. The fact that he was a bit surprised by the reception is what I find so utterly compelling. He was unaware of the full significance of his discovery.

What RFM did was to look at a problem from a different perspective; through the eyes of someone who has thought deeply about magic. This is one of the reasons scientists build teams of people with diverse skills. They look at problems differently and magic happens. By a fluke of history we have someone who is an expert in (1) using facts to support a case and (2) tricking peopling with magic. ( I know that may not paint RFM in a good light - I'm just making a point!). He was probably as interested in entertaining us as he was educating us, which is why we love his podcasts. To me it also makes RFM more trustworthy. He was going for fireworks, not an explosion.

[Guest]

Mohammed doesn't seem to have had any schtick. As I understand his story, verses would sometimes be revealed to him while other people were watching and at least in those cases he had some kind of visible change of state, going into trance or something and listening to a voice that only he heard. It doesn't sound very dramatic, though. I think it might well have been a genuine psychological phenomenon rather than a deliberate put-on. At any rate there were no gadgets or gimmicks involved. Mohammed really just let the text of the Quran speak for itself. That was the only gimmick he needed.

Apparently the Quran speaks for itself very impressively. Even in English it does have some catchy passages, though most of it reads to me as a rambling sermon. In Arabic, I understand, it's pretty much verbal crack. If he wasn't actually a prophet then Mohammed was the Shakespeare and Goethe of Arabic.

I'm sorry but the Book of Mormon is not a Quran. If it were, it would have impressed people regardless of its provenance, so Smith could just have said it came to him in a trance or a dream and there would have been no need of any plates or translation. Smith didn't have what it took for that. And he clearly knew it.

L. Ron Hubbard was closer to Smith's level as a writer. He was a fluidly prolific hack who lived on a penny-a-word in the golden age of pulp fiction, though he was old-school enough that he didn't misspell words or screw up grammatically. Hubbard didn't get anywhere on the strength of his prose or ideas. As a cult leader, instead, he depended completely on a gimmick: the "auditing high". Hubbard discovered that if somebody listens to you carefully for a long enough while, occasionally asking you pregnant but open-ended questions and otherwise attentively letting you ramble, then at some point after an hour or so of this so-called "auditing" you will suddenly start to feel good. You'll feel calmly euphoric, with a sense that something in you has changed and you've advanced towards your goals.

Opinion is divided about how this high relates to hypnosis but it's a definite thing, about as reliable as the buzz from a bottle of beer. Psychoanalysts have been living from it for decades, charging even more per hour than most Scientology auditing, and all kinds of rich anxious people have been paying and paying. Some of them have paid Scientology auditors instead, for a knock-off version that apparently works roughly as well.

That's why Scientology exists. It's like a Rastafarianism where people come for the ganja. It doesn't stand on Hubbard's wonderful ideas, which are mostly so embarrassing that the Church of Scientology goes to lengths to conceal them.

[_Shulem]

Starting today I am reading No Man Knows My History again. I want to see if anything pops out again. The other reason is that I haven't studied church history closely. So my claim that I believed Joseph Smith acted alone was based on gut instinct, not knowledge. So it's an opinion that deserves to be challenged.

That's sounds like a great idea. You know, I don't think I've ever read it. Shame on me! You might also like to review Dan Vogel's work too which is available here on line:

Joseph Smith
The Making of a Prophet
by Dan Vogel

Dan uses a lot of sources you'd never get from the church or faithful scholars who hide information.

Frankly, I just don't consider myself qualified to handle RFM's bombshell theory in connecting it to the historical record. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut from this point on because I do have a loud mouth and on this matter I'm over my head.

We need Vogel. He can do it. I would love to hear what he says about RFM's podcast. Maybe somebody can contact him? He seems to be out to lunch., I guess. Where are you, Dan? We NEED you now more than ever.

:neutral:

[_Kishkumen]

I agree that it feels pretty difficult to say Smith acted alone. I think that's a good point. If he had others in on it, then why the need for a trick? In my mind, the people devoted early to the project, had to be convinced somehow. If Smith convinced them that he had spiritual prowess beyond others, then the tricking had to grow more and more elaborate, and it simply doesn't feel possible he wouldn't have been found out by someone. But if Smith convinced them he had scriptural story and needed help creating it, and they could all start a new religion with devoted followers and the like, then it feels possible.

I also still wonder if he truly felt the story in his head was scripture. It wasn't trick per se, but just him thinking he really was inspired by God and the words that came out of him, inspired-feeling as they were, were, as he saw it, God dictating scripture through him. There just happened to be people who felt impressed he was inspired. The whole magic trick stuff just feels way too sophisticated and elaborate. The level of scheming, plotting and then maintaining and covering it up in front of dozens of different people just feels impossible.

It seems to me that you are forgetting that he was an established trickster who was engaging in treasure-digging schemes. His skills and his subject matter come directly from that milieu. The Book of Mormon starts off as a treasure that he and other treasure seers were looking for. The translation springs out of that, and it cannot be divorced from it. He had first to convince others that he recovered the plates. Then he eventually commits to translating them himself. Knowing that this all originated in a ruse, we should instead think it would have been strange for him to do other than he did.

How did he manage to keep people looking for treasures that were not there? Seems kinda needlessly complicated. Then too, however, do lots of cons. The complication covers up the aim of making money. Joseph must spin out the process of finding the treasure in order to be paid for looking for it. The Book of Mormon translation process is sold to Martin Harris in a certain way so that he will believe in it and fund it. To imagine this unfolding in other, simpler ways and then say that it would be more sensible and credible to have done so is to ignore so much of the history leading up to the discovery of the plates and their translation.

[_Shulem]

. . . . he was an established trickster who was engaging in treasure-digging schemes. His skills and his subject matter come directly from that milieu. The Book of Mormon starts off as a treasure that he and other treasure seers were looking for. The translation springs out of that, and it cannot be divorced from it. He had first to convince others that he recovered the plates. Then he eventually commits to translating them himself. Knowing that this all originated in a ruse, we should instead think it would have been strange for him to do other than he did.

Here is a masterful example of Smith's treasure digging by Vogel:

When we examine specific examples of Smith’s treasure seeing, most attempts to minimize his involvement fail to persuade. For example, Jonathan Thompson, testifying in Smith’s defense at the 1826 court hearing, reported that Smith once located a treasure chest with a seer stone. After digging several feet, the men struck something like a board or plank. They asked Smith to look into his stone again, but Smith refused, stating that the treasure was protected by the spirit of a murdered native American. Thompson remained a firm believer in Smith’s “professed skill,” adding that “on account of an enchantment, the trunk kept settling away from under them while digging.”

This friendly testimony in defense of Joseph Smith attests that Smith was using his stone to locate treasure and learn about a historical curse upon it -- how so ? Revelation from God or just making crap up out of thin air?

Any interpretation of Smith that is to be taken seriously must account for Thompson’s friendly testimony. As I see it, there are three possible explanations: (1) Smith saw an imaginary treasure in his stone, (2) Smith pretended to see a treasure in his stone, or (3) Smith saw a real treasure which disappeared before being unearthed. Thus, we either accept the treasure-seeking lore of Smith’s day as reality and reject rationalist categories of traditional historical investigation or come face-to-face with a man who consciously or unconsciously deceived. Personally, as both a ration­alist and skeptic, I find it easier to assume that the treasure never existed and that Smith deceived Thompson or was himself deluded rather than believe that a buried treasure supernaturally vanished or relocated itself to another hiding spot.

Likewise we can use the above pattern to surmise what Smith did with his hat and stone:

1. Smith saw imaginary writing in his hat
2. Smith pretending to see writing in his hat
3. Smith saw real writing in his hat put there by God

[_Shulem]

Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
by Dan Vogel

As a teenager I dabbled in stage magic and sleight-of-hand tricks, but my attention soon turned to charlatans and confidence men who use similar methods. The more I learned of the art of deception and its history, the more skeptical I became of any kind of real magic. While I later enjoyed D. Michael Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (1987), I thought his treatment of magicians was too generous. Indeed, the book says virtually nothing of charlatans or of those who use magic as a backdrop for trickery and seems to accept uncritically the possibility that magicians—aside from stage magicians—actually possess to some degree the supernatural powers they claim. In fact, there is a variety of possibilities for categorizing magicians, as follows:

1. The charlatan who may or may not believe in magic but uses its vocabulary and props while employing trickery for profit, power, and prestige.

2. The sincere charlatan who believes in magic but occasionally uses trickery both to enhance his presentation and more easily convince others of his powers.

3. The deluded magician who, for a variety of reasons, believes he really possesses magical powers.

4. The sincere magician who practices magic without trickery but may support his belief through anecdotal evidence.

5. The real magician who possesses supernatural gifts, controls nature, performs miracles, etc.

The magician requires the cooperation of his audience-–the abandonment of skepticism and the suspension of disbelief. To penetrate the illusion, to expose the fraud, one must first stop collaborating.

Since all magicians use the same vocabulary and exploit the same world view, we may ask what kind of magician/shaman Joseph Smith may have been. I believe that during his early career as a treasure seer, he was a charlatan but came to believe that he was, in fact, called of God and thereafter occasionally used deceit to bolster his religious message.

Interesting, indeed.

[_moksha]

Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
by Dan Vogel

5. The real magician who possesses supernatural gifts, controls nature, performs miracles, etc.

Was there any Twilight Zone music to accompany this statement on real magicians?