Lets assume for a moment that Smith was not a conman. He obviously wasn't telling the truth! That point has been, and will continue to be discussed on this board and elsewhere 'till the kingdom doesn't come. So, in this (unlikely) case, he actually believed that angles had visited him, God (or somebody...) had talked to him in the woods, and he had powers that let him translate non-existent archaeological artifacts that he totally thought were real.

My educated analysis of the situation, then: What a CRAZY mofo!!! This guy's got to have all sorts of psychological illnesses that went tragically undiagnosised throughout his life. If he lived in Upstate New York today, he'd have gotten the care he so obviously needed, especially if he went public babbling his nonsense.

The one thing that doesn't make sense is what about his family? Could they not see that ol' Joe was crazier than a coconut? Didn't they feel any responsibility to help him with his obvious illness? Or maybe it was a family illness, and he just got it from one of his parents.

If anyone knows of a psychological analysis of Joseph Smith, I'd be interested in reading it.

The Smith family had been a bunch of con artists for a long time. They made part of their living for many years performing folk magic and selling spells and charms. Joe was a con artist from childhood and probably believed partly in the effectiveness of that magical world. My take on him is that he was intelligent, persuasive and charismatic but didn't really understand the difference between truth and dishonesty. He was brought up to have a very pragmatic view of the truth.. The truth is what you can talk people into believing. Manipulation of what others took as truth was his trade. It was easy with this mind set to take advantage of women for sex, men for their money and everyone in general to create an image of "Joe the prophet of God."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 11:39AM by rationalguy.

+1

On a psychological aspect, that upbringing would have likely caused him to have little true empathy for others, becoming a Psychopath and/or Narcissist. Some are trained away from the ability for empathy and for some it is a genetic brain defect.

He didn't believe he was ever speaking to angels or such, he was rushing to cash in on the idea - already out there in books such as View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith (no relation)- that the Native American's were of the lost tribe of Israel.

Since it was a hot topic in the area, and he was already digging for treasure, why not dig for a record of the people and really cash in?

Conning others, not himself, was his thing. Indulging himself... another topic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 11:55AM by dareuslikeparis.

dareuslikeparis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> On a psychological aspect, that upbringing would
> have likely caused him to have little true empathy
> for others, becoming a Psychopath and/or
> Narcissist.
...


I don't discount the possibility that he may have had
some hallucinations now and then -- perhaps even spells
of what he thought were of magical/supernatural origin.

But such fits wouldn't explain his lifelong pattern of
lying, elevating himself and taking advantage of others.

Besides just growing up in a scheming, con-man family,
I'd guess that he experienced some traumatic events
early in life. The diseased leg and subsequent "exile"
to Salem may have been part of the trauma -- or, there
may have been other, hidden experiences we know nothing
about, which set him upon a narcissistic, manipulative life.
I'd guess sexual molestation at a very early age as one
possibility -- resulting in self over-protection.

Look into the known life history of similar characters,
who needed so very badly to be always be the "top dog"
that they brought God into their arguments, as their
ultimate personal authority, and perhaps we can better
understand Smith's criminal psychology.

UD

Joseph is in my family tree. The tree that stayed behind, looked at all the "rubes" he was trying to recruit. He had a hard time because he came from the "burned over" area of New York. People who were at once farmers, yet well educated (their ancestors founded Harvard and Yale, something quite few miss). Joe's ne'er to well activities were probably encouraged by his father. His father had written a book, of which I haven't seen a copy, but was apparently about his genealogical ties to royal families. This part may actually prove true. It was a bust , but you can see where when they were struggling for a new scam, and they are living during the tent revivals, they may have cooked up another idea - let's start a religion! So many independent churches had splintered off, it was a common thing at the time. Since there's a "rube" born every minute, it wasn't too hard to cook something up. Unfortunately, Emma's father,a mason and hard working farmer and hunter, and Ben Franklin reader Isaac Hale,wasn't a "rube". Being extremely angry that old Joe ran off with his daughter, and then had the nerve to come back and ask for her inheritance, old Joe didn't fit into this hardworking crew. Perhaps Joe Senior instilled in him a sense of aristocratic birth rite? Old Joe Sr. is probably the primary driver and supporter of his sons delusions. Mormonism's polygamy was born when Jo was caught with his pants down with the young female house help by wife Emma and had to come up with a quick excuse! "God told me to do it!" Yeah sure.

Try Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith by Robert Anderson. Dan Vogel provides some insight on family dynamics in his book Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet. I don't think Smith can be characterized as mentally ill based on his belief in folk magic and angels because those beliefs were part of his social environment.

If I were going to "diagnose" him, which is dicey without actually knowing him, I would look to his narcissism and to his antisocial behaviors, such as his deception, law-breaking, sexual excesses, and callousness.

Early trauma, loss, deprivation, and family instability played a big part in how Smith thought of himself and related to others. As a boy he had been injured, crippled, poor, afraid, and looked down upon. As a man he wanted to ensure he would never experience those things again and behaved accordingly.

Back to moving :-)

++ Good

It must have started out as a con - he obviously knew the gold plates weren't real - but as time went on, surrounded by people who believed he was a Prophet of God, he may have begun to believe his own lies.

You're right.

My fave church moment about those plates was where he "started for home along the Canandaigua road, the record tucked under his arm".

Based on the dimensions he gave, those gold plates would weigh 200lbs! If they were copper, that would still be 50lbs of compacted (not distributed) weight. Yeah, right.

Ps: I love science.

sexismyreligion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It must have started out as a con - he obviously
> knew the gold plates weren't real - but as time
> went on, surrounded by people who believed he was
> a Prophet of God, he may have begun to believe his
> own lies.

Vogel makes a similar point. Once Smith took on the role of prophet and had followers to reinforce it, he was trapped in it by his fear of humiliation if he gave it up and the rewards it offered. As he gained and lost followers he had to get in deeper and deeper to explain the losses and make more gains. I imagine it was pretty heady stuff. I agree there was a lot of conscious deception on his part, and like you, I think the plates are best evidence of that. He probably compartmentalized his knowledge of his deception from his feelings he was called of God. Now and then they collided, but I think there was a good bit of self-deception. People tend to be selective about which facts they keep in mind and operate on and which they don't.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 12:39PM by robertb.

When I was a TBM, the only doubt I ever harbored (without completely shelving into the back of my mind) was whether or not JS was schizophrenic.

I just couldn't shake that feeling that it was a totally viable option.

After I left TSCC, conman made a lot more sense, and was in fact comforting.

The other option that a friend introduced me to was hallucinogens. I think it's a bit of a stretch, but he had a whole bunch of literature supporting the arguments. It's a decent argument for Brigham Young and after (because most of the plants referenced were out west), and it's also a pretty good argument for the OT & NT.

But basically his book listed tons of plants/fungi that would make you hallucinate if you put them in your fire, or ate them, or seasoned things with them.

It was an interesting option, but not one I have looked into extensively.

That could easily explain the angels visiting the Kirtland temple dedication. A "sacrament" was passed around and boom!

Of course that could also be a myth like the transfiguration of BY.

Smith was a conman, but I think he was the kind of conman that tried to make himself believe his own cons. You see it a lot among faith healers, and fortune tellers, and Joseph Smith was a hybrid of those proud traditions.

Rationalguy nailed it.

I don't think JS was crazy at all. He was a hustler, and pretty good at it too. Hustling is as old as America itself, its a big part of what America is about and always has been. De Toqueville wrote about it long ago, as did others. Anybody can come here, reinvent themselves, and get rich by whatever means they can manage to get away with. Taking advantage of those around you is just part of the game. Mildly sociopathic people with charisma, charm and intelligence have always done very well here and still do. Hell, Romney wishes he had the intelligence, charm and charisma of JS, and not just his hollow willingness to bend the 'truth' to his will!

Today JS would be seen as prime CEO material, a go-getter willing to get 'creative' to get the job done, job meaning making himself and a few key others rich at the expense of the suckers. Our current types of cultural magical thinking aren't nearly as interesting as those available to JS, but we see magical thinking around us all the time. Its why the JS types are bigwigs, players, its why they are in charge in economics and in politics. JS would be a titan of Wall Street, a key figure in today's ponzi schemes. And instead of getting lynched if he got caught out for his shady dealings, he'd get away with it, his gold stashed away safely and plenty of people still thinking he was some kind of hero. Today's profits mostly get away with their frauds.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,617625



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 12:48PM by steve benson.

I was a licensed mental health counselor when I first started having doubts about the church. I found all kinds of crazy stuff on the internet about Joseph Smith. Based on what I discovered (and believed), I pulled out my DSM-IV and diagnosed the B@stard myself.

NPD!! Yep, no doubt about it:

http://behavenet.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder

Scary, huh?

;o)

Harold Hill got away with it because the kids actually did manage to squeak out 'Minuet in G', AND he got Marian the Librarian.

Joesph got away with it for a while...

But "the think system" doesn't apply so well to mormonism.

It's more like the "do so many little things so that you DON'T think about it" system.

I think it is clear that by today's standards, as Steve and shannon point out, it is quite possible--but not inevitable--that a lot of JS's behaviors could be characterized as evidence of some sort of illness(es). But according to the standards of his own time and among his contemporaries, he wasn't that unusual. The visions, the mood swings, the passion, the violence, the hustling, I don't think any of that was perceived of as 'illness' the way we might see it now. In fact, a lot of it probably was seen as positive; its why he gained converts and successfully started a new religion in an atmosphere full of other options.

To characterize him now in terms of deviance serves a couple of suspiciously selfish purposes IMHO. It makes him Other in a big clear way--he's the Big Scary Wierdo--that creates a safe distance between him and us, preserving our own purity, sanity and innocence. How convenient! Now that he is too strange and bizarre to take seriously, we can dismiss and disdain him and pretend we never had much to do with him or gave him any credence. We can conveniently forget the fact that this 'crazy' person and his actions had a lot of influence on us at some point (or we wouldn't be here at all talking about it).

Speculating about his mental state here from the future might be fun and interesting, but it doesn't alter the fact that he was successful in his own time. Crazy or not, we and/or our ancestors were seduced. Giving him some new labels just pretends to excuse us from the truth that we were never entirely innocent, pure or sane ourselves. Yeah sure, let's laugh and joke about it, even feel some outrage or shame. But let's be honest and accept that crazy does sell, and we were buying into it and at least pretending to love it only a short time ago, long after this wacko was dead and buried. Just why that is so raises far more interesting and difficult questions IMHO.

You make a number of good points. One of the problems of diagnosing mental illness is that we have yet to agree on mental health, and mental health, absent a brain injury, is often contextual.

While I see problems with Smith's behavior, I am less certain than I used to be about "diagnosing" him. Part of this uncertainty--or perhaps reluctance--is I feel diagnosing has substituted for moral condemnation, but it is still moral condemnation with a "scientific" justification. I'm not sure I like that. Is mental health really the frame we should use?

Regardless, I wouldn't put my money in Smith's bank or let him near my daughter.

Joe's brand of crazy sells like hotcakes in this age. Look at all the weird cults, political movements, etc. and they are usually led by some guy, who, like Joe, thinks he's special enough to tell the rest of us what to think and do...and unfortunately, there's a sucker born every minute. It has ever been so. Even Jesus was that guy, when you think about it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2012 02:34PM by rationalguy.

I think Joe was narssasistic (spelling?) and that he conned people with strong drink and hemp. Plus it helped that most of the people he gathered in as members were dopes and uneducated. The combination produced modern Utah, behold...U--T--A--H!

Unfortunately, I think you're right, even though I am a Utahn.

Try these -

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201602/5-traits-actual-psychopaths

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-social-thinker/201801/3-key-traits-may-be-red-flags-psychopathy

https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/psychopath/psychopathic-traits-and-characteristics-of-a-psychopath

Psychopathy is a bit different than sociopathy; in the former, areas of the brain related to having a conscience do not activate or "light up" normally. Life is lived without fear of consequence and a complete absence of conscience.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782696/

https://www.appi.org/Sword_of_Laban


“A whole life can be shaped by an old trauma, remembered or not.”—Lenore Terr, Child Psychiatrist

What behavioral patterns could one expect from an adult whose brutal childhood traumas held themes of dismemberment, punishment, and worse? For Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism, a religious superstructure of narcissism may have evolved, with sexual and ritualistic features that flowed directly from traumatic events.

Joseph suffered unspeakable pain as a seven-year-old child from a leg bone infection and its surgical treatments without anesthesia. He survived as the crippled middle child of an impoverished migrant family, retreating into a fantasy world of violence, persecution, and revenge from which he never completely emerged. As an adolescent, the sudden death of his beloved older brother contributed bizarre bereavement fantasies to an already traumatized psyche.

The Sword of Laban examines the Mormon prophet’s enigmatic life in light of current understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder and the dissociation that accompanies it. Dr. Morain traces the repetitive patterns of behavior and fantasies of Smith’s adult life. He demonstrates how the horrifying real events of the surgeries combined with the developmental phase-specific fantasies of a seven-year-old boy resulted in permanent pathological distortion of Smith’s entire early psychological growth and development—with significant consequences for his subsequent adult psychological functioning.

Dr. Morain’s remarkable psychological study of Joseph Smith, Jr. will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers—as a social history, religious biography, an account of the dissociative elements in poetic and spiritual genius, or simply a gripping portrait of an ill-fated and tragic man. This text also has a special relevance for clinicians who are changing their theoretical and practical approaches to psychiatric illness.

nickname Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If anyone knows of a psychological analysis of
> Joseph Smith, I'd be interested in reading it.

I don't know but a psychological analysis of Mr. Psychological Analysis might be more informative...

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/12/sigmund-freud-fake-charlatan-liar/