In addition to clarifying the translation process, an automatic writing model of the Book of Mormon helps illuminate issues that never have been adequately explained. Such is the case with the extensive 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 James translation of the Old and New Testaments. Since many of these quotations occur in settings hundreds of years before the biblical manuscripts existed, it seems unlikely that these verbatim extractions were originally composed, engraved on the Nephite plates. Some people have attempted to resolve this problem by speculating that when Smith came to a passage in the ancient record that paralleled biblical ideas, he used the King James Bible to assist in the translation. Unfortunately, this explanation is not supported by the known accounts of the translation process, none of which mentions Smith using a Bible or, for that matter, even having one present.

Automatic writing, on the other hand, provides a simple explanation of these circumstances. Just as individuals under hypnosis have been able to quote lengthy passages in foreign languages which they heard at the age of three, so have automatic writers produced detailed information from books that they have read but in some cases cannot remember reading. Thus, if Smith’s scriptural productions borrowed material from the Bible, this is entirely consistent with other instances of automatic writing. This quirk of memory, known as cryptomnesia, may also explain the presence of styles and literary patterns that are found both in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

Because such feats of recall occur in automatic writing, this helps us understand the inclusion in the Book of Mormon of so many concepts that seem to belong to nineteenth-century New England. A number of Mormon writers have pointed out that the Book of Mormon incorporates theological concepts and addresses religious debates common to Smith’s environment. The book also capitalizes and expands on theories of the origin of the American Indian that were circulating in that part of the country at that time but have been rejected by anthropologists and ethnologists today. The existence of these parallels has caused believers and skeptics alike to assign an inordinate degree of significance to the question of whether Smith had direct access to and studied books whose ideas are echoed in the Mormon scriptures.

But automatic writing renders such a question irrelevant. Automatic texts often contain information available to the writer in the most obscure manner imaginable. One researcher described a woman who, with a ouija board, produced automatic writing that recounted “almost exactly” the death notices in an available newspaper. Although the woman apparently had not read these obituaries, she had done the crossword puzzle found on the same page in the newspaper. It seems that her mind had picked up and stored material that was in her field of vision as she worked the crossword puzzle; she had unconsciously read and unconsciously written information of which her conscious mind was entirely unaware. Interestingly, the researcher further reported that the writing contained information to which the woman had no access whatsoever. It should not be surprising, therefore, to find Smith’s scriptural productions repeating things he may have heard or overheard in conversation, camp meetings, or other settings without any concerted study of the issues.

An understanding of automatic writing also reveals a number of problems with certain Book of Mormon apologetics. For example, an oft-repeated defense of the Book of Mormon asserts that Smith was too ignorant and uneducated to create a book of such complex construction and profound teachings. But this is exactly what other producers of automatic texts have accomplished, most notably the unlettered Pearl Curran, whose moving religious novel won the praises of historians and literary critics alike. If the Book of Mormon is to be defended as a uniquely inspired ancient text, it must be done on stronger ground than this.

Similarly, some apologists have claimed that evidence for the Book of Mormon’s ancient character “proves” or validates its doctrinal teachings. Such claims are clearly made in ignorance of automatic texts, many of which evidence historical and philosophical knowledge beyond that of the writer. Since the theologies of these other writings clash with the Book of Mormon and with each other, it is fallacious to suggest a connection between doctrinal claims of a book and the miraculous aspects of its contents.

This last point in particular raises a much larger question: On what basis do we designate a book as scripture? Believers say the Book of Mormon is a holy book, but why? Because its language or content are miraculously beyond the knowledge of the writer? This is true of other books. Because it was brought forth by supernatural means? This is also true of other books. Because it teaches Christian principles? This is true of other books. Because it changes lives for the better? This, too, is true of other books. Because people feel they have received a spiritual witness of its divinity? Even this is true of other books. In fact, there does not appear to be anything of a historical, theological, philosophical, or literary quality in the scriptural writings of Joseph Smith that has not been matched by those well outside the Mormon tradition. While Latter-day Saints who take issue with this statement may point to masses of evidence that they feel support the claims of their scriptures, this disparity in evidence probably results from the disproportionate attention they devote to their own book to the exclusion of similar works produced by nearly identical means.

Of course, there are many ways of understanding the parallels to automatic works. It may be argued that automatic writing is God’s true means of giving revelations and translations (in the case of Joseph Smith) which has been counterfeited by Satan (in the cases of Jane Roberts, Pearl Curran, and others). But this raises the difficult question of why Satan would assist in the production of such fine literary works as Jane Eyre, such moving religious novels as The Sorry Tale, or such uplifting instructional works like A Course in Miracles.

An alternative view that circumvents this difficulty might be that not only did God use automatic writing to help his prophets produce latter-day scripture, but he also used it to inspire great literature as with Pearl Curran and Charlotte Brontë. In this view, Mormons might consider Patience Worth to be a real seventeenth-century woman whom God permitted to pierce the veil and communicate with a twentieth-century American housewife. But this explanation may bother more traditional Latter-day Saints, especially since the teachings of so many automatic texts run counter to LDS theology.

Still another possibility is that some or all of these books are wholly or partially the result of psychological processes. Unfortunately, this does not resolve the central problem: How does one distinguish inspired books from psychological phenomena? It is easy enough to say that the Book of Mormon is inspired while other books are not. But without more evidence of clear differences, such an assertion will not be convincing to outsiders who are acquainted with automatic writing. If Mormons are to interpret the evidence consistently, we must either revise our understanding of the role of the standard works or adopt a more pluralistic attitude about the validity of other kinds of spiritual phenomena such as automatic writing.