Der Autor über sein Buch
An explanation of purpose, method, and goals in this bookThis book is an attempt to understand Joseph Smith psychologically by examining The Book of Mormon as a possible disguised autobiography. My book excludes all supernatural claims from consideration, inasmuch such a naturalistic approach is the position of science and academic history. The basic argument of the book is by allegory, simile and metaphor, and gains strength by the repetitive patterns between the stories in The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's life. As similariities mount, the likelihood of Joseph Smith's life being the origin of The Book of Mormon steadily increases, and hopefully will give the reader pause and thoughtful consideration. As the similarities mount, so do the differences between the stories, and the common elements in these differences increasingly become the focus of my discussion, because it is in these differences that we can begin to understand the writing technique, and therefore the psychological methods of Joseph Smith when he is considered as the author of the Book of Mormon. I listen to the Book of Mormon as I would a patient in psychotherapy in seeing what changes he makes to his life story in The Book of Mormon. It is such recurrent ideas that allow me, in the last chapter, to unify his personal history and Book of Mormon stories into a diagnostic profile, using known psychiatric knowledge and labels, but also modifying these labels to mold them to this unusual religious genius.