SUNSTONE / JUNE 1985

Another Lookat the Book ofMormon

This is a course in miracles. Please take notes." Withthese words, a Columbia University medical psychol-ogist and self-proclaimed atheist was introduced toan inner voice which identified itself as Jesus Christ.Acting against her skepticism, the psychologist,

mm known simply as Helen, obediently began dictatingthe words of the voice to a colleague. The result after tenyears was a fifteen-hundred-page manuscript that waspublished in 1976 as a three-volume work, A Course inMiracles. Today, thousands of people in forty-seven statesand fifteen countries study, individually or in groups, thewords of this massive work which promises to bring themiracles of love and inner harmony into their lives.

Two years before this voice made itself known to Helen,another woman, Jane Roberts, began to experience psychicforces in her life. A novelist with no particular interest inthe occult, Roberts conducted experiments in this newdomain which soon led her into contact with "Seth," adiscarnate personality which spoke through the mediumof Roberts’s mind and voice. In these sessions Robertslapsed into a trance while Seth lectured on complex philo-sophical and metaphysical subjects quite beyond the edu-cational experience of Jane Roberts herself. By recordingSeth’s dictation, Roberts and her husband produced wellover a dozen books which have acquired considerable popu-larity with the religiously and mystically minded segmentof the American reading public.

Equally curious is the case of Levi H. Dowling, a manborn just a month before the martyrdom of Joseph Smith.Dowling, who pursued careers as a pastor, medical doctor,and writer, experienced visions from childhood and waseventually commissioned by "Visel the Goddess of Wisdom"to record The A#uarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. This scripture-

JUNE 1985/SUNSTONE 17

Manypeople who

produce auto-matic writing

attribute itscomposition to

an outsideintelli-gence.

like production purports to be a "transcriptionfrom the Akashic Records," recounting a hereto-fore unknown ministry of the Savior. This work,which is still available in bookstores today, com-ments on the natures of God and man, prophe-sies its own coming forth, and contains manyother teachings familiar to Bible-readingChristians.

In spite of their disparate backgrounds, Helen,Jane Roberts, and Levi Dowling all appear to bepart of a phenomenon known as "spirit writing"or "automatic writing." This term refers to theability to dictate or write material in a relativelyrapid, seemingly effortless and fluent manner.Moreover, the practitioner of automatic writingdoes not consciously compose the material.Indeed, except for sometimes knowing a word ortwo moments in advance of writing or speaking,the individual is typically unaware of what thecontent of the writing will be. (See Ian Stevensonin the Journal of the American Society for PsychicalResearch, October 1978, p. 316.)

Interestingly, there are a number of significantparallels between such instances of automaticwriting and events in the life of the prophetJoseph Smith. Indeed, historian Lawrence Fosterand other non-Mormon authors have suggestedthat automatic writing was the very methodthrough which Joseph Smith produced the Bookof Mormon. Such a .claim, if correct, can havemany important implications for the way weapproach our latter-day scriptures. Before explor-ing the validity of this contention, however, itwill be helpful to acquire a greater understandingof the various forms, techniques, and causes ofautomatic writing.

Many people who produce automatic writingattribute its composition to an outside intelli-gence. In some instances, such as those citedabove, this external consciousness may have aname and personality all its own. These so-called"channeled texts" frequently revolve aroundsome sort of religious theme. For example, theOahspe, a work belonging to this genre, claims tobe a "New Bible in the words ot~ ]ehovih [sic] andhis Angel Ambassadors." Like the conventionalBible, this volume consists of various "books,"and includes an account of the creation and earlyhistory of the earth as well as doctrinal and pro-phetic discourses. Interestingly, this 1882 pro-duction, created automatically through the typ-ing of dentist John Newbrough, also containsseveral lines of unusual characters or "hiero-glyphics," which are translated in the book’sglossary.

Probably better known is the Urantia Book, a"2100-page ’library’ of cosmology, philosophy,and religion," published in 1955. Disciples of thiswork consider it to be a "divine revelation," awork that "will change you." It is said to answer"the Three Most Vital Questions being asked...on earth todayi" namely "Who Am I? What Am I

Doing Here? [and] Where Am I Going?" (ClydeBedell’s Concordex of the Urantia Book, pp. 19, 16, 12,11.)

Such familiar promises notwithstanding, theaverage reader is likely to find this massivevolume a bit bizarre. The first fourth of the book,for example, claims to have been "Sponsored by aUversa Corps of Superuniverse Personalities act-ing by authority of the Orvonton Ancient ofDays." Among the authors listed for the separatepapers are "Perfector of Wisdom,""Mighty Mes-senger,""One High in Authority,""Melchizedek,""Brilliant Evening Star," "Chief of Seraphim,""Chief of Midwayers," and other unusual char-acters. Other sections of this book include "TheLocal Universe,""The History of Urantia [Earth],"and "The Life and Teachings of Jesus."

Of course, channeled texts are not the onlyform of automatic writing. Indeed, a number ofwell-known works of literature came into beingt]hrough this method. Charlotte Bronte, for ex-ample, is said to have written her masterpiecesVillette and Jane Eyre in a steady stream with hereyes shut. Calling her a "trance-writer," criticsSandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar quote entriesflrom Bronte’s journals that describe visionar’..~experiences and moments of "divine leisure" i~which "the stream of thought.., came flowingflree & calm along its channel" (The Madwoman intheatric, pp. 311-13). Perhaps alluding to a similarprocess, the visionary William Blake wrote thathis lengthy poem Jerusalem was "dictated" to him.Similarly, the English poet A. E. Houseman oncenoted that entire stanzas of poetry would comeinto his mind all at once.

Still another well-known poet to composematerial in this fashion is Robert Graves, whoonce related that while working on a historicatlnovel, "a sudden overwhelming obsession inter-rupted me. It took the form of an unsolicitedenlightenment on a subject I knew almost nothingof .... my mind worked at such a furious rate allnight, as well as all the next day, that my pe~nfound it difficult to keep pace with the flow ofthought .... within three weeks, I had written a70,000-word book about [an] ancient Medi-t.erranean Moon-Goddess," later published asThe White Goddess. Though Graves denied anyi~avolvement with spiritualism, the method de-scribed here exactly fits the definition of auto-matic writing. (Five Pens in Hand, pp. 54-55, 58.) Nodoubt the reason such literary works are seldomconnected with spiritual phenomena is that unlikechanneled texts the authors rarely claim that theworks were composed by anyone other thanthemselves.

Automatic writing may be obtained in a vari-ety of ways. Some individuals experience wordsor thoughts forming in their minds, which theythen write down or dictate. This is what hap-pened to Lilian D. Johnson, who believed she was

18 SUNSTONE/JUNE 1985

in psychic contact with a group of departedspirits. She would sit at a typewriter and askquestions about such subjects as life after deathand receive the answers in her mind. The dis-courses prompted by this method have been pub-lished in a book entitled Spray from an Inland Sea.Similarly, Jane Roberts records that when inmental contact with the spirit personality Seth,"the words tumbled through my head and outmy mouth" (The Seth Material, p. 31).

Many individuals are able to produce auto-matic writing with no mental involvement what-ever. In these instances, the person usually holdsa pen or pencil and writes freely without know-ing what he is writing. Such an individual maycarry on a conversation with someone in theroom while his hand is writing on an entirelyunrelated subject. Indeed, some people must bedistracted before their hand can produce involun-tary script. Others require complete silence.

Some people generate works of automaticwriting through the medium of the ouija board,whose pointer spells out the individual letters ofeach word. A number of purveyors of automatictexts, including the prolific Jane Roberts, beganwith this technique.

Others use different implements to produceautomatic writing. Stone- or crystal-gazing (scry-ing), for example, is a well-documented methodof stimulating this kind of writing. In most ofthese instances, the individual gazes into thestone or crystal and experiences some sort ofvision while the hand writes automatically. Thiswriting typically reports information seen in thevision. In some cases, the stone-gazer’s visionreveals written words rather than events. Forinstance, one woman relates, "I had been tryingto obtain automatic writing while looking in thecrystal. I was also wondering who had put a pairof lost scissors in a very conspicuous place, whereI had just found them. I saw a name written, andfound that my right hand had written the same

namei" (Theodore Besterman, Crystal-Gazing,pp. 126-27.) Other individuals’ dictations de-scribe what is seen in the crystal. As an example,one psychologist reports the case of a young boywho, though considered stolid and unimagina-tive, dictated a fantastic adventure story whichhe saw enacted in a crystal while his hand wroteautomatically at the same time. (Anita K. Muehl,Automatic Writing, pp. 111-26.)

A number of people, including Jane Roberts,create involuntary script while in a trance. Never-theless, many automatic writers produce theirworks while fully awake and alert. This is thecase with Helen, the woman through whom ACourse in Miracles was composed. One writerreports that if the "telephone rang during a dicta-tion session, she could interrupt to answer it; thevoice [which dictated the work] waited patientlyfor her return and then resumed, in mid-sentenceif necessary, exactly where she had broken off"(Psychology Today, September 1980, p. 84).

As with method, the quality of material ob-tained through automatic writing varies widely.Much of it is, as one author observes, "taken upwith platitudinous moralising, or verbosely ex-pressed spiritual philosophy, most of it inferiorto what the writer could produce in a normalfashion" (D. J. West, Psychical Research Today, p. 58).However, this is not always the case. Someworks seem to exhibit writing skills and aware-ness of facts far beyond those which the indi-vidual normally possesses. For example, in speak-ing through Jane Roberts, the personality of Sethonce carried on a conversation with a professorof psychology using appropriate terminologyand making references to esoteric philosophicaltheories of which Jane herself had no apparentknowledge. The psychologist later wrote that he

chose topics of conversation which were clearly of tolerableinterest to Seth and considerable interest to me, and which by

Someworks exhibitwriting skillsand awarenessof facts farbeyond thosewhich the indi-vidual normallypossesses.

JUNE1985/SUNSTONE 19

Infor-mation in

automatic writ-ing can eften betraced to ideas

to wMch thewriter was ex-

posed duringIbis life.

that time I had every reason to believe were largely foreignterritory to Jane. Also... I chose to pursue these topics at alevel of sophistication which I felt, at least, made it exceed-ingly improbable that Jane could fool me on.

So impressed was he by the results that heaffirmed, "I do not believe that Jane Roberts andSeth are the same person, or the same personal-ity, or different facets of the same personality."(As cited in The Seth Material, pp. 107-8.)

Some have suggested that the varying qualityand different methods employed in obtainingautomatic writing--e.g., ouija boards, dictation,crystal-gazing, and others--indicate that this isnot one but an entire collection of qualitativelydifferent phenomena. This view allows followersof a particular channeled text to label one suchwork "inspired" while dismissing others as merepsychological phenomena. Such a claim might beplausible if it could be shown, for example, thatouija boards always produce drivel, while crystal-gazing produces impressive literature. However,this is simply not the case. Individuals who pro-duce high-quality writing often use the samemethods as those who produce clearly inferiorworks. Too, some individuals use a variety ofmethods to generate automatic writing, with noapparent difference in the fluency or quality ofthe writing. At least one automatic writer re-ceived various channeled texts through a ouijaboard, through handwriting, through dictation,sometimes with visions and sometimes without,always maintaining the same apparent style andlevel of quality throughout her work. It wouldappear then that the use of crystals or ouijaboards, dictation or manual writing, are only dif-ferent techniques or expressions of the sameunderlying process which produces material in arelatively rapid, unplanned manner.

Of course, one could attempt to make a casefor multiple phenomena based on varying qualityalone. Unfortunately,, our inability to objectivelymeasure depth of thought and quality of expres-sion renders this a difficult claim to substantiate.Moreover, the fact that the quality of some indi-viduals’ writing improves over time casts doubton the validity of using varying quality as a criteri-on to identify different phenomena.

There is much to suggest a connection be-tween automatic writing and what is often called"creative inspiration." For instance, a number ofnovelists who have outlined their plots andplanned their characters and settings neverthe-less find themselves typing hurriedly away, anx-iously waiting to see what twist their story willtake next. In some instances, authors find theeffortless flow of ideas so pronounced that theyspeak of its source as their own personal "muse."Seen this way, automatic writing becomes afairly ordinary occurrence which emerges invarying degrees depending on the talent andtraining of the practitioner.

But such an observation, while helpful, still

]teaves questions about the most extreme formsof the phenomenon. This is especially so in thecase of channeled texts, which appear to beauthored by totally independent and invisiblebeings. Where do these unusual works comefrom?

The most immediate explanation would be toaccept the claims of their purveyors as entirelycorrect. In other words, it may indeed be the casethat a frequently reincarnated spirit named Sethspoke through Jane Roberts or that Jesus Christcommunicated A Course in Miracles to a psycholo-gist named Helen. Not surprisingly, followers ofthese works have occasionally produced evidenceto support this literalistic hypothesis.

Yet while there are intriguing and even miracu-lous circumstances surrounding some of thismaterial, there is also good reason not to accept itall at face value. This is especially true in the caseof channeled texts which purport to be the newworks of long-dead authors dictating materialfrom the spirit world. For example, a few yearsago a woman published a book which she claimedwas authored by the ghost of the noted Americanpsychologist William James. Unfortunately, thevapid writing style of this work bears no resem-blance to James’s own inimitable literary style. Ifwe are to accept these claims as correct, we canonly wonder at the devastating effect whichdeath has on personal capacities.

Partly for this reason, many students of auto-matic writing have sought other explanations forthis phenomenon. Although research in this areahas been relatively scant, a number of the avail-able studies suggest that both the content ofautomatic writing and the spirit personaliti.espurported to produce it are creations of un-conscious levels of the human brain. Indeed,information found in automatic writing can veryoften be traced to events, facts, or ideas to whichthe automatic writer was exposed during his orher lifetime.

Consider the case of a woman who claimedthat the automatic writing she produced was dic-tated by her deceased mother, a spirit whoreferred to herself in the writing as "My Dear-est." Under the questioning of a psychologist,"My Dearest" (i.e., the mind or entity whichcomposed the writing) revealed that she was notthe woman’s mother at all but was merely a per-sonality which emerged to comfort the womanwhen her mother died. Further questioning:revealed details apparently from the woman’s:memories. For example, "My Dearest" expresseda fondness for "yellow steps" and, when asked¯ why, explained that the steps to her house hadbeen painted yellow when she was young. Thewoman through whom the writing was "trans-mitted" did not remember this at all. l_.ater on,ihowever, the psychologist was able to verify thatthe steps to the woman’s childhood home hadbeen painted yellow when she was three yearsold. (Muehl, Automatic Writing, pp. 43-47.)

20 SUNSTONE/JUNE 1985

Similar results were obtained by Dr. P. L.Harriman, who employed a group of students toexperiment with automatic writing:

Under hypnosis they were made to live through in imagina-tion some difficult situation. They were told they wouldforget all about it on waking. The subjects had previouslybeen trained in automatic writing, and after being broughtout of their hypnotic state they were given paper and penciland encouraged to write while at the same time engaging indesultory conversation. The automatic writings so obtainedwere frequently concerned with the anxieties and conflicts setup by the imaginary difficult situations. One student, whohad been told by the hypnotist that he was summoned to thedean’s office, produced a screed containing a list of minoroffences and neglected duties. He had in fact been guilty ofthem all. (West, Psychical Research Today, p. 58.)

Experiments of this sort have also been per-formed with crystal-gazing. One psychologistreported working with an individual who, whenperforming automatic writing during crystal-gazing, was able to recall forgotten events thatoccurred as far back as the age of fifteen months.The accuracy of this remarkable recall was con-firmed by the subject’s mother. (Muehl, AutomaticWriting, pp. 112-19.)

None of this is to suggest deliberate deceptionon the part of the automatic writer. On the con-trary, the best-known practitioners appear to bevery sincere individuals who are unfamiliarwith the latent abilities of the human mind.When they discover that they can rapidly pro-duce writing of a quality superior to their naturalpowers, they very understandably suppose thatsuch works must come from an outside source.In some such cases, automatic writing may occurin connection with an alternate personality ex-pressed through religious beliefs or a desire tocommunicate with a departed loved one. Althoughthe language and disposition of these secondarypersonalities make them appear to be distinct,external beings, their origin is no further away

than the writer’s own mind.On the other hand, the fact that automatic

writing contains material from the writer’s mem-ory does not mean that it cannot also containparanormally derived information. In otherwords, it is entirely possible that an automatictext may contain a mixture of the writer’s ownideas and the ideas of some external, possiblydivine, intelligence. Because the possibility forsuch a combination exists, it is often very diffi-cult to rule out entirely supernatural explana-tions for automatic writing. Ultimately, of course,there is simply no way either to prove or disprovesuch claims. To a great extent, belief in the influ-ence of other-worldly minds and powers onautomatic writing remains a matter of faith.

But what, if anything, does this have to dowith the Book of Mormon? In spite of the associ-ation of this phenomenon with hypnotism andouija boards, a number of parallels exist betweenJoseph Smith’s production of scriptures and.instances of automatic writing. These parallelscan best be illustrated by a detailed recounting ofone of the most extensively documented exam-ples of automatic writing: the case of PatienceWorth. This unusual story began one hot sum-mer evening when Pearl Curran, a St. Louishousewife, was persuaded by some friends toexperiment with a ouija board. After some falsestarts, the pointer began spelling out words.Pearl’s mother dutifully took down the letters asthey were called out. Through the ouija boardcame the curious declaration: "Many moons ago Ilived. Again I come--Patience Worth my name."(Irving Litvag, Singer in the Shadows, pp. 1-2, 27-28.)

The group began carrying on conversationswith "Patience," who, though reticent to talkabout herself, indicated that she was an English-woman who had lived in the seventeenth cen-tury. Using what appeared to be an archaic formof English, Patience carried on saucy discussionsfilled with pungent metaphors and sarcastic

A numberof parallelsexist betweenJoseph Smith’sproduction ofscriptures andinstances ofautomaticwriting.

JUNE 1985/SUNSTONE 21

Unlikemany instances

of automaticwriting, the

works of PatienceWorth e)chibited

impressiveliteraryquality.

retorts. More interesting, Patience Worth dic-tated numerous poems and epigrams, whicheventually attracted a great deal of public interest.

Unlike many instances of automatic writing,these works exhibited impressive literary qual-ity. A preeminent literary critic of the day,William Marion Reedy, though not believingPatience Worth to be a genuine spirit, referred toher poems as "extraordinary" and "’near great." Aprofessor of English from Virginia found some ofthem superior to the verse of Chaucer, Spenser,and even Shakespeare. While most readers of~Patience’s work were not this enthusiastic, eventhe most unbelieving of critics admitted thatthere were occasional passages of "undeniablesimplicity and beauty" or that it was "all goodliterature and deserves reading on that accountalone." In 1916 and again in 1918, PatienceWorth was listed in a highly respected andauthoritative anthology of poetry; the samevolume which included ten poems by Amy Lowelland five by Edna St. Vincent Millay listed someeighty-eight poems by Patience Worth, severalof them marked as "poems of distinction."

In time the entity who identified herselfsimply as "a wench" dictated a number of novelsand plays. These, too received substantial criti-cal acclaim. The most popular was The Sorry Tale, amassive historical novel relating to the life ofJesus Christ. The work generally received favor-able reviews and earned Patience Worth a placeamong the outstanding authors of 1918 as judgedby the Joint Committee of Literary Arts of NewYork. A reviewer for the New York Times called TheSorry Tale "a wonderful, a beautiful, and a noblebook," one "constructed with the precision andaccuracy of a master hand." One scholar andcritic wrote that the segment "describing thecrucifixionma chapter of five thousand words...idictated in a single evening--is a composition of:appalling force and vividness, and an interpreta-tion on a high and sincere plane." Still another

critic, also noting the book’s spiritual and emo-tional impact, referred to it as a "fifth gospel," aterm Mormons sometimes apply to 3 Nephi. (Ascited in Litvag, Singer in the Shadows, pp. 62, 161,124, 180-81, 152, 160, 155-56.)

Like believers in the Book of Mormon, follow-ers of Patience Worth adduced linguistic evi-dence to show that the writing dictated throughPearl Curran did indeed belong to antiquity.While some of the language used by Patience wasmore ungrammatical than archaic, there appearto be occasional uses of genuinely obsolete Englishwords which Mrs. Curran simply would not haveknown. More striking still is the extraordinarilyhigh incidence of Anglo-Saxon words in PatienceWorth’s vocabulary. While modern English de-s.cends from Anglo-Saxon, it currently uses a-rather high percentage of words borrowed fromother languages. The Declaration of Indepen-dence, for example, uses only forty-two percentAnglo-Saxon words, the King James Bible seventy-seven percent, and Chaucer sixty-four percent.However, Patience Worth’s language, as mea-sured in one of her novels, consists of an amazingninety percent Anglo-Saxon words. In light ofthe fact that one must go back to writings of thethirteenth century to find a comparable percen-tage, it becomes apparent that Patience Worth’sproductions are, as one scholar put it, nothingless than a "philological miracle." (West, PsychicalResearch Today, p.62.)

Another startling thing about the works attribu-ted to Pearl Curran is their accuracy on factualdetails which Mrs. Curran apparently could notl~ave known, a defense often applied to writingsgiven through Joseph Smith. Regarding The SorryTale, one author notes that "scholars and literarycritics agreed that even a lifetime of reading allavailable knowledge of the Holy Land (readingthat apparently never took place, but even if :ithad) still would not have given [Mrs. Curran] theinformation to produce a book with such verii-

22 SUNSTONE/JUNE 1985

similitude." Similarly, after the publication ofHope Trueblood, Patience’s novel of English life, theLondon Times asserted that the book "reveals afamiliarity with nature as it is found in England,and with the manners of English life of the oldertime." Another British paper commented thatsections of the work appeared "to show anuncanny knowledge of English social life in the17th century and before." (Litvag, Singer in theShadows, pp. 160, 189-90.)

Like Joseph Smith, Pearl Curran appears tohave lacked the education necessary to producesuch works. Individuals close to her were quickto point out that while she was an intelligentwoman, Mrs. Curran was clearly unacquaintedwith early English literature and "never had readanything archaic." This curious situation prompt-ed one observer to note that "if Patience Worthbe an invention, the inventor is a genius of nomean order." (Litvag, Singer in the Shadows, pp. 160,76-77, 81.)

While for many years Mrs. Curran receivedcommunications from Patience through a ouijaboard, this method was not always employed.Just as Joseph Smith eventually began to dictaterevelations without the aid of a seer stone, soPearl Curran began to dictate the words ofPatience Worth without a ouija board or anyother physical object. Mrs. Curran "simply sawthe pictures and the words in her head and calledthem out, as coming from the hand of PatienceWorth" (Litvag, Singer in the Shadows, pp. 212-13).

As with other producers of automatic writing,Mrs. Curran was not in a state of trance but wasfully alert while dictating Patience’s words. Shewould look over at a friend, wave, or even write aletter while dictating. Her dictation was effort-less and fluent and could be performed for hourswithout stopping. She was known to have dic-tated nearly 6,000 words in a single sitting andwas once timed at producing 110 words per min-ute. In sharp contrast, when Mrs. Curran com-posed her own writing, the process was muchslower, sometimes requiring most of an after-noon to write a single letter.

One respected journalist made an intriguingobservation about the composition process: "Eachtime the story was picked up at the point wherework stopped at the previous sitting, without abreak in the continuity of narrative, without theslightest hesitation, and without the necessity ofa reference to the closing words of the lastpreceding instalment" (Casper Yost in the pref-ace to The Sorry Tale, p. iv). Compare this observa-tion to that made by Emma Smith regarding theproduction of the Book of Mormon: "[Joseph]would dictate to me hour after hour; and whenreturning after meals, or after interruptions, hewould at once begin where he had left off, with-out either seeing the manuscript or having anyportion of it read to him. This was a usual thingfor him to do." (Saints’ Herald, 1 October 1879,p. 290.)

Pearl Curran is like Joseph Smith in stillanother way: for both, virtually all available his-torical evidence militates against the possibilityof calculated fraud. In the case of Mrs. Curran,there appears to have been little motive for suchdeception, since the publication of PatienceWorth’s writings ended up costing the Curransand their friends a great deal of money. And ifPearl had been interested in fame, it would havebeen much more to her advantage to put her ownname to the material she dictated, since the asso-ciation of her works with the occult actually hurttheir acceptance in the literary world. Further-more, Mrs. Curran and her immediate associateswere known by all as individuals of unimpeach-able honesty.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence in favorof Mrs. Curran’s sincerity is the fact that muchof the writing was produced in settings whichseem to exclude the possibility of deliberatedeception. For example, Walter Franklin Prince, aprofessional researcher of psychic phenomenawho carefully and skeptically analyzed the caseof Patience Worth, reported the following:

A poem of 25 lines was demanded, the lines beginning withthe letters of the alphabet, except X, in due order. It wasinstantly dictated. I asked for a conversation between a loutand a maid at a county fair to be couched in archaic prose,and a poem in modern English on ’The Folly of Atheism’--first a passage of one and then a passage of the other, thusalternating to the end. This seemed to me an impossiblemental feat. But it was done so rapidly as to tax therecorder--four passages of humorous prose abounding inarchaic locutions, alternating with four parts of a poem inmodern English of lofty and spiritual tenor; and whenassembled each factor made a perfectly articulated little pieceof literature. (Scientific American, July 1926, p. 22.)

In such a situation, there was clearly no oppor-tunity for Mrs. Curran to work out the poetryand memorize it in advance.

Prince also compared Patience Worth’s writ-ings with known works of literature but dis-covered no indications of plagiarism. He did,however, find some linguistic similarities betweenthe writings dictated by Mrs. Curran and somepoems from Dorset, a community in that part ofEngland said to be the home of Patience Worth.(The Case of Patience Worth, pp. 80ff, 271.)

Interestingly, this same Walter F. Prince alsoconducted an extensive study of the Book ofMormon. In an article entitled "PsychologicalTests for the Authorship of the Book of Mormon,"he concluded that the Book of Mormon reflectedevents and ideas common to nineteenth-centuryNew England. It is not surprising, then, to dis-cover that Prince was far more impressed withthe supernatural aspects of the Patience Worthcase than he was with the Book of Mormon,which he considered to be the product of JosephSmith’s unconscious mind. (American Journal ofPsychology, 1917, pp. 373-95.)

But beyond these general parallels to the expe-

LikeJoseph Smith,Pearl Curranappears to havelacked theeducationnecessary toproduce suchworks.

JUNE 1985/SUNSTONE 23

Theuse of a

crystal or stoneto dictat Infor-

mation is well-known nethod

of producingaut omatic

writing.

rience of automatic writers, what is the evidencethat Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book ofMormon is an example of automatic writing? Tobegin with, the content of channeled texts isoften similar to that of the Book of Mormon.Multiple authorship, use of archaic language,accounts of bygone historical figures, accuratedescriptions of times and places apparently notfamiliar to the writer, narratives with well-developed characters and plots, accounts of vari-ous ministries of Christ, instances of poetics,discussions of doctrine, theology, and cosmology,and even discourses by deity are found in both.

More importantly, the manner in which JosephSmith produced the Book of Mormon (and apparentlymany revelations and other scriptures as well)bears strong resemblance to the process of auto-matic writing. For example, there is no indicationthat Joseph used notes or outlines nor conductedmajor reworkings of the materials he dictatedprior to their initial publication. While such con-ditions are characteristic of a relatively simpletranslation task, they are also typical of auto-matic writing.

In addition, the bulk of the Book of Mormon,dictated after Oliver Cowdery became Joseph’sscribe, was completed in approximately ninetydays. This represents fairly rapid work for a bookof this length, even if Joseph worked at the trans-lation every day. Such comparative quickness isalso characteristic of automatic writing.

Even more significant are statements by MartinHarris, David Whitmer, Emma Smith, JosephKnight, Sr., Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery,Isaac Hale, and others which report that Josephdictated the Book of Mormon with his face bur-ied in a hat looking at a seer stone or, possibly,the spectacle-like pair of transparent stonesknown as the "interpreters" or Urim andThummim. Emma Smith and Elizabeth WhitmerCowdery report that the Prophet would performthis operation for hours on end. Most of theseaccounts, some of them by eyewitnesses, indi-cate that Joseph was reading words or sentenceswhich he saw in the sacred instruments. Thiscertainly implies a relatively effortless or auto-matic process. Moreover, this use of a crystal orstone to dictate information is a well-knownmethod of producing automatic writing.

Some have suggested that the Book of Mormonwas not produced by effortless dictation butrather represents a conceptual translation inwhich Joseph had to work out the meanings ofpassages in his head. This supposition is oftenbased on analysis of the book’s grammaticalerrors which seem to reflect Joseph Smith’sidiom. However, to make inferences about trans-lation methods based on a study of content isvalid if and only if it is certain that the text istruly a translation in the ordinary sense of thatterm. This, however, has not been shown. More-over, as automatic writing demonstrates, thepresence of one’s own language or memories in a

text by no means indicates that the text wasproduced through extensive mental effort orconscious planning.

Proponents of a "free" or conceptual transla-tion also frequently cite a passage in Doctrineand Covenants 9, which informs Oliver Cowderythat in order to translate an ancient record, hemust "study it out in [his] mind" (D&C 9:7-8).However, an analysis of earlier versions of perti-nent revelations makes it clear that Oliver andJoseph were using entirely different methods oftranslation. Section 8, a previous revelation dis-cussing Oliver’s desire to translate, reminds hirnof: his "gift of working with the rod" which hadalready "told [him] many things.;’ It was appar-ently through this rod that he was promised theability to "translate all those ancient recordswhich have been hid up, [that] are sacred." It isquite natural for this translation method torequire mental study since such rods typicallyga~ve yes-or-no answers through their move-..ments to approve or disapprove of propositions..On the other hand, there is no reason to beliew~that these instructions to Oliver have anythingto do with Joseph Smith’s method of transla-.tion through the seer stone or the Urim and[Thummim. On the contrary, neither the accountsof Joseph Smith’s seer stones nor the literatureon stone-gazing in general indicate that sucl~tstones give the user "spiritual impressions" or’require mental deliberation. Rather these objectsproduce clear visions and allow virtually effort-less dictation.

Although some details of the Book of Mormontranslation seem to clash with the classic auto-matic writing model, these differences are not asproblematic as may first appear. For instance, anumber of sources observe that Joseph knew agreat deal about the content of the Book of:Mormon long before he ever began translating.Nevertheless, while these sources indicateJoseph’s general awareness of events in the book,they do not reveal precisely the degree to whichhe was able to anticipate particular passages. Atleast one account suggests that occasionallyJoseph was surprised by details which emergedwhile he was dictating.

Furthermore, a period of anticipation or prep-aration prior to automatic writing is not unknownin the creation of channeled texts. For example,prior to producing Oahspe, John Newbrough wasvisited by the work’s angelic authors, asked if hewould "perform a mission for Jehovih," and wastold to prepare for this experience. This prepara-tion consisted of a special diet, charity work, anda series of interviews in which the angels askedthe dentist "questions relative to heaven andearth, which no mortal could answer intelli-gently." Finally, ten years after the first visita-tion, the angels told Newbrough how to proceedwith the automatic typing of their work. (LauraHorst, A Condensed Version of Oahspe, pp. 26-29, 20.)Similarly, Joseph Smith’s earliest knowledge of:

24 SUNSTONE/JUNE 1985

Book of Mormon contents did not result fromconscious pla~lning but was acquired from thespirit Moroni, one of the book’s principal authors.Such a preparatory or incubation period is alsoevident in instances of sudden insight ancl otherunconscious mental processes.

Another seeming contrast between the Bookof Mormon and automatic writing is the asser-tion in some documents that Joseph had portionsof the manuscript read back to him before con-tinuing. However, these sources do not indicatethat Joseph did this in order to keep track of thestory line or maintain his place in the narrative.Indeed, remarks by Emma Smith and Parley P.Pratt indicate that in dictating the Book ofMormon and revelations respectively, this was infact not necessary. Furthermore, an examinationof the Book of Mormon manuscripts suggeststhat comparatively little editing or revising ofwork was made as it was recorded. This is pre-cisely what we would expect from a text pro-duced through automatic writing.

In spite of such differences, then, it does notseem unreasonable to assert that the same auto-matic processes operating in the production ofvarious channeled books were at work in JosephSmith as he translated the Book of Mormon andperhaps also as he dictated various revelations.

In addition to clarifying the translation pro-cess, an automatic writing model of the Book ofMormon helps illuminate certain aspects of thisvolume which have never adequately been ex-plained. Such, for example, is the case with theextensive use of the Bible in the Book of Mormon.In addition to the lengthy passages from Isaiah,the Book of Mormon is replete with allusions,expressions, and quotations from the King Jamestranslation of the Old and New Testaments.Since many of these quotations occur in settingshundreds of years before the biblical manu-scripts were composed, it seems highly unlikelythat these verbatim extractions were engraved

on the Nephite plates. Some Mormons haveattempted to resolve this problem by speculatingthat when Joseph Smith came to a passage in theancient record which paralleleci biblical ideas, hewould use the King James Bible to assist him inthe translation. Unfortunately, this explanationis not supported by the known accounts of thetranslation process, none of which mention Josephusing a Bible or, for that matter, even having onepresent.

Automatic writing, on the other hand, pro-vides a very simple explanation of these circum-stances. Just as individuals under hypnosis havebeen able to quote lengthy passages in foreignlanguages which they heard at the age of three,so have automatic writers produced detailedinformation from books which they have readbut in some cases cannot remember reading.Thus, if Joseph Smith’s scriptural productionsborrow material from the Bible he was known tostudy, this is entirely consistent with other casesof automatic writing. This phenomenon ofmemory, known as cryptomnesia, may also ex-plain the presence of writing styles and literarypatterns which are found both in the Book ofMormon and the Bible.

Because such feats of recall often occur inautomatic writing, this phenomenon also helpsus understand the inclusion in the Book ofMormon of so many concepts which seem tobelong to nineteenth-century New England. Anumber of Mormon writers, for example, havepointed out that the Book of Mormon incor-porates theological concepts and addresses reli-gious debates common in Joseph Smith’s environ-ment. In addition, the book capitalizes and ex-pands on theories of the origin of the AmericanIndian which were circulating in that part of thecountry in the 1820s but which have beenrejected by anthropologists and ethnologiststoday. The existence of these parallels havecaused both Mormons and anti-Mormons mis-

Anautomaticwriting modelof the Book ofMormon helpsilluminate cer..tain aspectsof thisvolume.

JUNE 1985/SUNSTONE 25

There is notanythir g in thescriptural writ-ings ol JosephSmith that has

not been matchedby those outside

the IMormont radition.

takenly to assign an inordinate degree of signifi-cance to the question of whether Joseph Smithhad direct access to and studied books whoseideas are echoed in the Mormon scriptures.

But automatic writing renders such a questionirrelevant. Automatic texts often contain infor-mation available to the writer in the most ob-scure manner imaginable. For example, one re-searcher has described the case of a woman who,with a ouija board, produced automatic writingwhich recounted "almost exactly" the deathnotices in an available newspaper. Although thewoman apparently had not read these obituaries,she had done the crossword puzzle found on thesame page in the newspaper. It seems that hermind had picked up and stored material whichwas in her field of vision as she worked thecrossword puzzle; she had unconsciously readand unconsciously written information of whichher conscious mind was entirely unaware. Itshould not be surprising, then, to find JosephSmith’s scriptural productions repeating thingshe may only have heard or overheard in conver-sation, camp meetings, or other settings withoutany concerted study of the issues.

An understanding of automatic writing alsoreveals a number of problems with certain tradi-tional Mormon apologetics regarding this stan-dard work. An oft-repeated defense of the Bookof Mormon, for example, asserts that JosephSmith was too ignorant and uneducated to createa book of such complex construction and pro-found teachings. But this is exactly what otherproducers of channeled texts have accomplished,most notably the unlettered Pearl Curran, whosemoving religious novel won the praises of histo-rians and literary critics alike. If the Book ofMormon is to be defended as a uniquely inspiredancient text, it must be done on stronger groundthan this.

Similarly, some Mormon apologists haveclaimed that evidence for the Book of Mormon’santiquity somehow "proves" or validates its doc-trinal teachings and even the existence of God.Such claims are clearly made in ignorance ofchanneled texts, many of which evidence histori-cal and philosophical knowledge beyond that ofthe person through whom the writing was trans-mitted. Since the theologies of these writingsclash with the Book of Mormon and with eachother, it seems specious to suggest a connectionbetween the doctrinal claims of a book and themiraculous aspects of its content.

This last point in particular raises a muchlarger question: On what basis do we designate abook as scripture? We say the Book of Mormon isa holy book, but why? Because its language orcontent are miraculously beyond the knowledgeof the writer? This is also true of other books.Because it was brought forth by supernaturalmeans? This is also true of other books. Becauseit teaches Christian principles? This is true ofother books. Because it changes lives for the bet-

ter? This too is true of other books. Becausepeople feel they have received a spiritual witness,of its divinity? Even this is true of other books. Infact, there does not appear to be anything of aihistorical, theological, philosophical, or literary.quality in the scriptural writings of Joseph Smiththat has not been matched by those well outsi~qethe Mormon tradition. While Latter-day Saintswho take issue with this statement may point tomasses of evidence which support the claims oftheir scriptures, these evidences appear to differonly in quantity--not qualitymto those thatundergird non-Mormon writings, and ttiat onlybecause there are simply more people examiningt,~he Book of Mormon than have scrutinized otherchanneled texts.

Of course, there are many ways of under-standing these similarities. It may be, for exam-pie, that automatic writing is God’s true meansof giving revelations and translations (in the caseof Joseph Smith) which has been counterfeitedby Satan (in the cases of Jane Roberts, PearlCurran, and others). Of course, this raises thedifficult question of why Satan would assist inthe production of such fine literary works as Janet:.yre, such moving religious novels as The SorryTale, or such uplifting instructional works as .ACourse in Miracles.

An alternative view which circumvents tl~tisdifficulty might be that not only did God useautomatic writing to help his prophets produ,celatter-day scripture but he also used it to inspiregreat literature as with Pearl Curran andCharlotte Bronte. In this view, Mormons mightconsider Patience Worth to be a real seventeenth-century woman whom God permitted to piercethe veil and communicate with a twentieth-century American housewife. This explanation,however, may bother more doctrinally mindedLatter-day Saints, especially since the teachingsof so many channeled texts run counter to LI2~Stheology.

Still another possibility is that some or all ofthese books are totally or partially the result ofpsychological processes. Unfortunately, this viewdoes not resolve the central problem: How doesone distinguish inspired books from psycholog, i-c:al phenomena7 It is easy enough to say that theBook of Mormon is inspired while other booksare not. But without more evidence of clear dif-ferences, such an assertion will probably not betoo convincing to outsiders who are acquaintedwith automatic writing. If Mormons are to inter-pret the evidence consistently, we must eitherrevise our understanding of the role of thestandard works or adopt a more pluralistic atti-tude about the validity of other forms of spiritualphenomena such as automatic writing.

SCOTT C. DUNN is managing editor of SUNSTONE. For muchof the information and many of the sources regarding the transla-tion method of the Book of Mormon, the author is indebted to BrentLee Metcalfe.

26 SUNSTONE/JUNE 1985